Brock Beauchamp

I don't think they tinkered with his primary pitch at all, it was the addition of the slider they worked on. And given his finger injuries, I'm not sure we should be surprised his sinker stopped working, as it's such a feel pitch.

First, Odorizzi was good with the Twins and the guy the Twins traded to get him is literally back in the Twins system. That was a helluva deal. Second, Joe Ryan made his debut a few days ago, to quite a bit of fanfare. He's not in the minor leagues. He starts again tomorrow. Third, Joe Ryan does not throw 90mph, he sits 91-93mph.

Alright, this is pretty funny.

To be fair to Nick Blackburn, he was a legitimately solid pitcher for two consecutive years, averaging 200 IP and a little over 2.5 rWAR a season. Ober could easily end up worse than Blackburn when all is said and done. I don’t think he will but it’s certainly possible.

Well, that was a nice, clean game. We haven't seen many of those in 2021.

You know Colome is on his game when guys are lifting the ball, sometimes to the warning track. /s

Wow, scary and then really nice play.

As if on cue, it's possible Polanco has a higher OPS than Semien after tonight and he definitely has a higher OPS+ (the two entered the night tied). edit: Actually, Polanco definitely has NOT passed Semien in OPS, as Marcus went 2-5 with 2 HR tonight!

I came back into the room to find Pineda on the mound, which was... confusing.

Welcome back, Byron.

The thing is that people have been saying this since the shift was deployed so heavily against Ortiz and other potent LHB, yet to this day none of them have employed bunting often enough to negate the shift. At some point, we need to acknowledge that players are not going to bunt in large enough numbers to prevent shifting and deal with the actual shift instead of hypotheticals that continue to not happen.

Yeah, I didn't think he had a chance at the runner but then almost nailed him at second. Perfect play all around.

That was a helluva throw by Refsnyder.

I believe every LHB should bunt to beat the shift and have been saying that since long before Twins Daily existed. Yet here we are.

The game is cruising along at a pretty nice pace, something we don't see often enough in today's game.

It always cracks me up when the third baseman or shortstop tries to throw out Buxton and he's almost off the camera frame by the time the ball reaches first.

The Twins would have to go 3-23 to finish the season to finish with 100 losses but hey, I guess it's possible.

Cleveland (68-66) has recovered a bit in recent weeks after falling below .500 when basically their entire rotation was injured. Minnesota (59-77), on the other hand, continues to stink up the joint after having a pretty decent August. Thankfully, today might be a total loss for Twins fans, as they have Bailey Ober taking the mound against a quite bad Logan Allen (6.62 ERA*). As most of you know, Ober's overall stat line isn't that impressive but in the "what have you done for me lately" category, he shines. Date Tm G GS GF CG Rslt Dec DR IP H R ER BB SO HR HBP ERA BF BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip Pit Str StL StS GB FB LD PU Unk GSc IR IS SB CS PO AB 2B 3B IBB GDP SF ROE aLI WPA acLI cWPA RE24 DFS(DK) DFS(FD) Jul 25 to Aug 30, 2021 MIN 7 7 0 0 5-2 W-L:1-1 4.9 36.2 34 11 10 5 36 5 0 2.45 144 .246 .271 .406 .677 .296 521 68% 16% 13% 0.54 23% 11% 0 57 ---% 0 1 0 138 5 1 0 4 1 0 .92 0.717 .00 0.00% 7.58 115.10 200.00 per 162 games 34 34 0 0 24 178 165 53 49 24 175 24 0 699 2531 53 0 0 5 0 670 24 5 0 19 5 0 3.5 0.0% 36.8 559 971 *While that looks great and everything, unfortunately Logan Allen is left-handed, which means the Twins offense will be lucky to post two runs against him over eight innings. After all, there's a reason why Bailey Ober has just a 1-1 record over the past month+ while posting a 2.45 ERA. This team is bad, y'all. By the way, have you read my new blog post? You should check it out because you definitely want the prize we're giving away at the end of the season. As for the offense, it's the usual suspects. Simmons is still there. Astudillo gets a start because a lefty is on the mound. Same for Refsnyder. It's increasingly difficult to care about over half this roster, as we all know they'll be gone by the time Opening Day 2022 comes around next year. But hey, on the bright side we watch Ober today and Ryan on Wednesday! That's fun, right? Minnesota 1. Byron Buxton (R) CF 2. Jorge Polanco (S) 2B 3. Rob Refsnyder (R) RF 4. Josh Donaldson (R) DH 5. Miguel Sano (R) 1B 6. Brent Rooker (R) LF 7. Ryan Jeffers (R) C 8. Willians Astudillo (R) 3B 9. Andrelton Simmons (R) SS Cleveland 1. Myles Straw (R) CF 2. Amed Rosario (R) SS 3. Jose Ramirez (S) 3B 4. Franmil Reyes (R) DH 5. Bobby Bradley (L) 1B 6. Owen Miller (R) 2B 7. Daniel Johnson (L) RF 8. Austin Hedges (R) C 9. Oscar Mercado (R) LF And remember, as always:

Well... do you, punk? Last July, we started a new community initiative where we offer prizes for the most liked posts and blog entries on the site. We'll post these awards four times a year: first half of the season, second half of the season, offseason, and spring training. Probably. Unless it becomes a miserable experience, at which point we reserve the right to stop at any time. These prizes... aren't great, to put it bluntly. They kinda stemmed me from reading comic books in the 1980s and loving the "No-Prize" award in every letters page written by the editor of Marvel Comics, signed off by Stan Lee and wow... I'm getting old real fast with that sentence so I'm gonna stop. But the prizes, while not great, are incredible. This season has been such a train wreck, such a total collapse of all things at once, such a complete and utter failure across the board that it was difficult to decide which of the many ripe fruits I should pick off the Minnesota Twins 2021 tree to celebrate this season finally coming to a close. But ultimately, I had to go back to the source of our collective misfortune and, at that point, it became clear what most needed celebration: the 2021 Minnesota Twins bullpen. And once that clicked into place, I realized there was only one place I could go with the second half community prize: A Ron Davis commemorative display. This display not only features Ron Davis' epic 1984 campaign with the Minnesota Twins but it also features Ron Davis' epic 1984 campaign with the Minnesota Twins. 2021 Twins fans surely can commiserate with everything I said - and didn't say - in that sentence. But there's more than just a few trinkets included in this display, as the below video will show to you skeptics still standing in the back: Ron Davis Commemorative Display Prize Ron Davis Prize.mp4 Yes, you heard that right. That is Grammy award-winning artist Sarah McLachlin singing her 1997 hit "Angel" from her 8x platinum album, Surfacing. So if you have the nerve, feel the moxy, can be the spoon, will channel your inner Randball's Stu... this perfect piece of Twins history could be yours, all you have to do is write the most popular post in the Twins Daily community. That could be a comment on a news story, a reply to a blog post, or even a blog comment. For the lucky person who can be all those things to all those people all at the same time, you will win the ultimate piece of Minnesota Twins memorabilia. I know, you just want this thing so much but remember, YOU HAVE TO EARN IT. Just like Ron Davis.

I'd be shocked if Gant, Albers, or Barnes are anywhere near a Minnesota rotation to open the 2022 season. And there are literally zero meaningful things the front office can do right now. PS. You missed Joe Ryan on your list, who may be the most promising arm in the rotation right now... It's either Ryan or Ober.

Watching the game it was a decent, though mostly uninspiring, start. The line looks worse than it should because Thielbar relieved Jax and promptly added a run to Jax's stat line by giving up a home run to a .500 OPS hitter (see my above post).

I agree but there's very little lost in getting him starting innings right now. Converting him to a reliever in September means he'd get maybe 5-7 innings, tops, against MLB hitting. As a starter, he can face 3-4x as many hitters, which is probably what he needs most right now.

The next hitter was Austin Meadows and Thielbar should have faced him whether Cruz walked or singled, which probably why they let Jax pitch to Nelson. Austin Meadows slash against RHP (Jax): .256 .344 .548 .891 Austin Meadows slash against LHP (Thielbar): .199 .277 .278 .556 A huge problem with this season, I'd argue the biggest problem, is that the Twins pull the right levers but then the players go out there and vomit all over the baseball diamond. At the end of the day, the player is the one who has to perform. The loss of the lead is 100% on Caleb Thielbar for failing to get a same-sided hitter who is terrible against same-sided pitching out. And he not only didn't get Meadows out, he gave up a home run to a guy slugging freaking .278 against LHP. Inexcusable. EDIT: And I just realized Meadows' LHP splits there are INFLATED because they include his home run against Thielbar. After calculating minus the homer, his OPS against LHP entering that Thielbar appearance was a terrible .527 and that means his slugging percentage was probably about .260.

The guy received fewer than 100 professional PAs, then was shut down for 18 months. While it's certainly not a good sign that he's a mess right now, it's also not terribly surprising, I'm sure there are loads of "good" prospects who entered 2021 as a hot mess. He still has fewer than 400 MiLB plate appearances in total. His stock has certainly dropped but more time is needed before we see what kind of player he really is under normal circumstances with normal seasonal baseball cycles.