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The Minnesota Twins again suffered a loss in a game in which they were in a prime position to win. Kenta Maeda had an uncharacteristically rough start, the bottom of the Twins’ order was inept, and the defense failed to convert routine plays. Additionally, though, Rocco Baldelli made some questionable decisions that contributed greatly to the Twins losing Wednesday’s series finale in Oakland. Let’s dive into the three head scratching moves.
Questionable Move #1: Letting Alexander Colomé Throw 49 Pitches
Though he had been shaky to start the season, bringing in Alexander Colomé in the ninth inning for the save was the clear move for Rocco Baldelli. Colomé was signed to the club to close out games and was the last high-leverage arm that Baldelli had remaining in his bullpen. Even bringing Colomé back in the 10th inning was defendable. Although he blew the save, Colomé threw 19 pitches in the ninth inning, and two right handed hitters were due up in the 10th for Oakland with the Twins owning a two-run lead.
The problem with Rocco’s decision-making was just how long he allowed Colomé to stay in the game in the 10th. After Colomé got the first two righties to make outs in the 10th inning, left hander Seth Brown was due up with Colomé now at 29 pitches. After cruising through the first two batters, Colomé began to show some clear signs of tiring, throwing a five-pitch walk to Brown to put the tying run on base. Left in to face Elvis Andrus, Colomé, clearly exhausted, walked his second straight batter to load up the bases. After not having walked a batter all season, Colomé just walked two consecutive batters and was now at 40 pitches. Although ineffective and running on total fumes, Baldelli inexplicably left Colomé in the game with the bases loaded to face Matt Chapman, arguably Oakland’s best hitter. At this point Colomé was now throwing the most pitches he had thrown in an appearance since 2015 (!!) when he was still a starting pitcher.
In Devin Smeltzer and Jorge Alcala, Baldelli may not have had the greatest options remaining in the bullpen, but it was clear to everyone that Colomé was tiring quickly and that a lesser name would give the Twins a better chance at that point than Colomé throwing a pitch count that he hadn’t thrown since Barack Obama left office.
Colomé was clearly going to be in the game until the end, and while he did produce grounders that should have turned into outs, the reckless handling of allowing a tired Colomé to walk the bases loaded and continue facing the heart of the Oakland order was inexcusable.
Questionable Move #2: Pinch Running Travis Blankenhorn for Josh Donaldson
Heading into the top of the 10th inning with the “Runner on second” rule in effect, Rocco Baldelli made the questionable move to swap out his Gold Glove-winning third baseman in favor of utilityman Travis Blankenhorn as a pinch runner. This move was questionable from the jump as Blankenhorn, a well-built corner position fielder, is not exactly the fleetest of foot and is only marginally faster than Josh Donaldson on the basepaths. If a play occurred where there was a blooper into the outfield and Blankenhorn were to need to score on a bang-bang play at the plate, then any speed advantage you can get on the basepaths is an advantage. Majority of the time, though, that runner on second will score in a different manner, and one where a very marginal difference in speed isn’t going to make a huge difference. That runner on second could score easily on a double in the gap. Or on a couple of sacrifices. Or a home run (like was the case on Wednesday). Or potentially not even get a chance to score at all.
There were so many variables at play that substituting a pinch runner in that spot for a very minimal gain in speed was not worth the subsequent consequence of taking Donaldson’s glove out of the game for the bottom half of the inning with a pitch-to-contact pitcher on the mound and plenty of ground balls incoming. While it didn’t come to fruition, the swap also removed Donaldson’s bat for a potential later inning, should extras have continued past the 10th inning.
The decision came back to haunt the Twins in a big way, too, as the domino effect of Josh Donaldson’s removal from the game caused two new players to enter the field on defense, each of them making consecutive errors that caused three runs and lost the Twins the ballgame. Which leads to questionable decision number three...
Questionable Decision #3: Moving Luis Arraez to Third Base and Putting Blankenhorn at Second
Rather than making the clean swap with putting Travis Blankenhorn in the field at third base for the bottom of the 10th, Baldelli decided to completely mix up the defensive alignment in extra innings by moving Luis Arraez to third base and slotting Travis Blankenhorn in at second. This now put the Twins in a situation where they were not only without their Gold Glove third baseman, but they had two defensive players playing in a totally new position that day, one of them completely cold, in a high leverage situation with a tiring pitch-to-contact player on the mound.
This decision reared its ugly head quickly as Blankenhorn botched a ground ball to second base to allow one run to score before Luis Arraez made a throwing error on the next at-bat to allow the tying and winning runs to score.
Sure, Major League Baseball players should convert those plays 95% of the time, but in a high leverage situation with all of the pressure in the world, a manager is not setting up his team for the best chance at success by taking out his Gold Glove veteran in favor of two young, stretched defensive players.
Rocco Baldelli was not the only reason that the Minnesota Twins lost to the Oakland Athletics on Wendesday afternoon. Baldelli is still the best manager for this ballclub, and better days and decisions are ahead. He did make some poor decisions, though, that contributed to the Twins losing Wednesday’s ball game, and does deserve some of the criticism for those decisions.
What did you think of Rocco Baldelli’s decision-making on Wednesday afternoon? Were there any other questionable decisions that stuck out to you? Leave a comment below and start the conversation!
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