Yankees 10, Twins 9: Byron Buxton's Career Year Continues in Thriller of a... Well, Loss, But Still

Watched the Cedar Rapids and St. Paul games and only saw several plays here and there and then the last couple of innings of the Twins game. Have to like how the Twins are pushing to score and not playing deflated. 

Hopefully the Twins are geared up for the Yankees tomorrow and Bradley can get outs.

Morneau basically said the Yankees knew what pitch Zebby was throwing, especially with a guy on 2nd. The Yankee runner on 2nd at the time took about a 2 foot lead so he could see Zebby's hand on the ball in his glove. He also said the batter would have taken a fastball in the ribs when that happened when he played.

8 hours ago, FlyingFinn said:

Morneau basically said the Yankees knew what pitch Zebby was throwing, especially with a guy on 2nd. The Yankee runner on 2nd at the time took about a 2 foot lead so he could see Zebby's hand on the ball in his glove. He also said the batter would have taken a fastball in the ribs when that happened when he played.

The Yankees are notorious for stealing signs & I question how legal their process is. They'll do anything for an edge. Twins have to school better against it (last game I thought they had). I wouldn't mind a fastball to NYY ribs.

Twins did a fantastic job coming out of a 9-run hole Zebby dug. The BP have been surprisingly good against the NYY.

Against the horrid NYY's BP we are asking our SPs not to be horrid so we can win the game against our nemesis.

Hats off to Larnach on a great game & almost winning the game for us. Just coming short, dead center.

I'm not a fan of Outman yet, but I can't see the value of him being in the bottom 3 WPA for the Twins. WPA has no value, so why keep posting it?

Saw something in this game that has been missing for the last 2-3 seasons...

And that is the ability to get going after a bad start.  We've been treated to a team that you could tell in about 2-3 innings if there was any reason to watch a particular game. No life shown early meant that there was about a 1% chance of the Twins getting going!  

I surely don't care to see the starter shelled (again...), but at least this bunch of "leftovers" kept the gas pedal down, and made a game of it!  Not a good (quality) game, but at least it was entertaining. 

Which beats the snot out of the pre-trade deadline Twins! (i.e. bad quality baseball played with zero heart, effort or professionalism)

Interesting game.  Nice comeback but almost a win is not a win.  I knew we would be in trouble right away when you look at the lineup Baldelli threw out there.  Both Lee and Keaschall not in lineup when they clearly could have helped.  Not even used as pinch hitters or defensive replacements.  Then to leave Matthew's in so long while he was getting hammered is disgraceful.  It signaled to a nice crowd and the players that he had little intention on winning.  The fact they came back proves all the runs Matthew's gave up mattered.  What does it do for his confidence to let him hang out there to dry?  Save the bullpen?  What for there's only a week and a half left.  Just another example of Baldelli having a huge part in the loss.  Twins also just fired their entire remaining scouting department to save money.  Baldelli may or may not survive the continued purge.  Problem is they are keeping Falvey so even if Baldelli goes we will just get a clone of him.  

For sheer entertainment, this was a great baseball game.

When the season is over, I'm confident Byron Buxton will have achieved  30/30; a first in Twins history. Cool!

5 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

The Yankees are notorious for stealing signs & I question how legal their process is. They'll do anything for an edge. Twins have to school better against it (last game I thought they had). I wouldn't mind a fastball to NYY ribs.

Last night Matthew's seemed to be just a thrower , not a pitcher ...

To many pitches in the heart of the strike zone and the Yankees hit and hit and hit again ...

Zebby needs control and last night he had no control  , he has a good fast ball and he needs to throw it at different eye levels for it to be effective  , last night he wasn't doing that , when he had 2 strikes on a batter he should have thrown a high fastball to get them to chase  , he wasn't pitching last night he was just throwing and the Yankees hit and hit and hit again ...

And Rocco sat and sat and sat again , yes we need innings but when a pitcher is getting shelled , the normal thing to do is is change pitchers regardless of whats availablein the bullpen ...

Twins did make it an interesting game by fighting back to a 1 run loss ...

3 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

"Zebby Matthews entered the game, continuing his extended audition for the 2026 rotation. Sporting excellent control, his command is still a work in progress."

I've sked this numerous times and never receive an answer.  So here I go again.  what is the difference between "command" and "control"?  To my ancient mind, if a pitcher has "excellent" control (as in the sentence above), he should beable to put away batters.  Where does this command thing come in?

Control is the ability to throw his stuff for strikes & not be wild. Command is not only the ability to throw strikes but also locating the pitch where you want it for a strike that's not down the middle.

5 hours ago, Whitey333 said:

Interesting game.  Nice comeback but almost a win is not a win.  I knew we would be in trouble right away when you look at the lineup Baldelli threw out there.  Both Lee and Keaschall not in lineup when they clearly could have helped.  Not even used as pinch hitters or defensive replacements.  Then to leave Matthew's in so long while he was getting hammered is disgraceful.  It signaled to a nice crowd and the players that he had little intention on winning.  The fact they came back proves all the runs Matthew's gave up mattered.  What does it do for his confidence to let him hang out there to dry?  Save the bullpen?  What for there's only a week and a half left.  Just another example of Baldelli having a huge part in the loss.  Twins also just fired their entire remaining scouting department to save money.  Baldelli may or may not survive the continued purge.  Problem is they are keeping Falvey so even if Baldelli goes we will just get a clone of him.  

Twins fired their remaining scouting department! OMG! What a complete idiot! Trusting completely in his weird analytics! Heaven save us! Pohlads completely trusting Falvey is a terrible combination! 

4 hours ago, terrydactyls said:

"Zebby Matthews entered the game, continuing his extended audition for the 2026 rotation. Sporting excellent control, his command is still a work in progress."

I've sked this numerous times and never receive an answer.  So here I go again.  what is the difference between "command" and "control"?  To my ancient mind, if a pitcher has "excellent" control (as in the sentence above), he should beable to put away batters.  Where does this command thing come in?

Must be another new statistic.

I think Matthews will be a good pitcher, but right now he's going through the gauntlet that some (most) of them do.  And once he figures it out, we trade him over to the Yankees or Red Sox!