Twins-Royals Preview: Let's Get Some Wins

Mahle, Lopez, Gray, Ryan.

I've never seen any Twins rotation that comes remotely close to that, in 55 years of paying attention. Wow.

I'm expecting a sweep.  I know that's expecting a lot but if we are a contending team maybe we should finally play like one consistently.  Anything less than winning 3 of 4 should be considered a failure.  The two s have only played slightly under 500 ball over the last 20+ games.  Go try to win every game.  No more throw away games like the last Yankee game.  Go Twins.

36 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

1 hour ago, big dog said:

 

Kaat, Perry, Grant, Pascual - but that was more than 55 years.

Ok. So they all played on the '65 World Series championship team, and Kaat's in the Hall. 

If the Twins win the WS this year, I believe there'd be a good case for comparison.

I'll go with Twins take 3 out of 4. The Royals are bad, but still an MLB team.

Then follow this series with a struggling even worse White Sox and the Guardian get away games at Boston and Yankees. Great time for a win streak.

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Kaat, Perry, Grant, Pascual - but that was more than 55 years.

That was along time ago but those were the days of good pitching and good hitting and alot of fight in the team to win ,,,

How many walk off wins can you remember  ???

I like the first sentence as a question  ...

Can the twins get another series win , and I like the answer even better  ( they better ) ...

Yes they better  , no blaming the weather as temperatures are rising  , now the batting averages should  rise above the mendoza line  , pathetic that Correa is batting 200 ...

3 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

It is interesting that you ask that.   I am listening to Jim Kaat's book - Good as Gold - and in it he made two fascinating statements - 

1. 1965 is the last series in which every starting pitcher threw a complete game
2. Harmon Killebrew hit a key, game winning HR for a key game in the extra innings, but we did not keep track of walk off hits - we did not even have the phrase in those days.  In a July 11, 1965 game that was a come from behind 6 - 5 game against the Yankees.  Tovar had another extra inning hit. He said Killebrew must have fouled off 5 -6 pitches, but we did not count them in those days. This is a paraphrasing of Kaat's words. 

Thank you , good memories  !!! 

3 hours ago, weitz41 said:

I'll go with Twins take 3 out of 4. The Royals are bad, but still an MLB team.

Then follow this series with a struggling even worse White Sox and the Guardian get away games at Boston and Yankees. Great time for a win streak.

I think this is right. Even an utter trash fire of a major league baseball club is going to win 40 games from somewhere (which is pretty much the pace the Royals are on) and while I'd love to collect a sweep, it'd be no shame to take 3 of 4.

KC's offense has been pretty rotten, but they're probably not as bad as it's been so far. The rotation isn't good, but it's not horrible (Singer has been their worse performer to date, but he's their best starter). Twins will have to be patient at the plate and not try to win the series on one swing.

We are definitely sending out a good collection of starters to try and shut down the Royals! Good opportunity, be fun to see if the players can execute.

4 hours ago, big dog said:

Mahle, Lopez, Gray, Ryan.

I've never seen any Twins rotation that comes remotely close to that, in 55 years of paying attention. Wow.

Agreed. Even without top Maeda, Twins have plenty of fallbacks in Bailey Ober, Louie Varland, SWR, etc. Heck, even Brent Headrick looks like he's got starter stuff. Ober has looked as stingy as ever, and Varland struck out 8 Yankees in his appearance. 

I expect to see Ober plugged into Maeda's spot, while Varland comes in to give one of the other starters an occasional break. 

1 hour ago, Blyleven2011 said:

Thank you , good memories  !!! 

Except we lost in 65 and I am still pist off about it!

Jk

3 hours ago, weitz41 said:

I'll go with Twins take 3 out of 4. The Royals are bad, but still an MLB team.

Then follow this series with a struggling even worse White Sox and the Guardian get away games at Boston and Yankees. Great time for a win streak.

Agreed...cuz BASEBALL!

And becuase BASEBALL! we lose Saturday. It just seems too appropriate.

23 minutes ago, joefish said:

Except we lost in 65 and I am still pist off about it!

Yeah. Tough to beat Koufax!

For all the early season grumbling, this team is looking pretty good.  Cherry picking the start date a bit, they've scored 5.25 runs per game over their last 8 contests.  Not everyone is clicking yet, but the offense does seem to be coming around fine.

The way the pitching lines up, I think they must be relatively heavy favorites in every game of this series.  Of course the way probability works they are probably still much more likely to go 3 and 4 than sweep.  Unless one of the starters has a bad day, I still feel like this team is ready for a sweep.

I expect a sweep. Now that Polanco is back, he has lit a fire under the line up. Even when Polanco wasn't even in the line up. Twins scored 6 runs in each of the NYY games, so I expect at least the same here. With the rotation of Mahle. Lopez, Gray & Ryan the Royals don't have a chance. Even if Baldelli puts all subs on the last day. Will we see Kiriloff? I hope so.

4 hours ago, weitz41 said:

I'll go with Twins take 3 out of 4. The Royals are bad, but still an MLB team.

Then follow this series with a struggling even worse White Sox and the Guardian get away games at Boston and Yankees. Great time for a win streak.

Don't need a sweep - just win series as that is the key to a successful season