Brock Beauchamp

That’s kind of a given for everyone in the bullpen except Rogers and he’s on probation.

Going with Robles in the seventh, that’s mildly surprising.

But imagine how effed up his legs must be if a not-big 34 year old athlete runs like that when he’s *trying*.

Wow, Donaldson is SO SLOW.

Diaperface? You’re half an inch from a warning for that. Seriously, not ****ing cool, Baldelli has a preexisting health condition.

But also, it should be pointed out that those Kirilloff and Larnach boys appear to be pretty ****ing good at hitting baseballs.

Bah. Good send but they got him. Glad Simmons isn’t hurt.

Where would this team be without Refsnyder and Garlick*? *never thought I’d say that

He turns 27 years old in a couple of days so “about to hit 30” is a bit of a stretch. But the general sentiment of that feels accurate.

Berrios isn’t an ace. I’m starting to wonder if he’ll ever be a good #2, which is really unfortunate. He has spent close to half a decade teetering between his potential and third starter. All in all, not a bad player to have but less than we expected.

Which is a testament to how much this team has underperformed and how much bad baseball luck they’ve run into, all simultaneously. There’s no way these two teams should be anywhere near each other in overall record.

There’s really no point in the New York reviewer knowing the call on the field unless it’s to protect the umpire.

There’s a significant starter gap in this game and it’s exactly the kind of game the Twins need to win handily if they want to crawl back to .500.

I think <50 games is too little to evaluate a coaching staff, particularly a recently successful one, but let's just say "their removal is on my radar at this point". As far as the team goes, I think the biggest need that won't fix itself is the bullpen. With the offense, their bizarre production splits make me believe they'll right themselves at some point, at least partially. The rotation has been up and down but I think there's enough there to recover, if not be good. But the bullpen... Duffey simply isn't the same. Robles was always a risk and seems to be roughly what I expected him to be, a decent 4th-ish option in the pen. Colome will fix himself, I think, but he's still a big risk. That leaves Rogers as the one guy who doesn't make me sweat when he takes the mound. And one reliable guy is about 20% of the bullpen you need in the modern game.

Testing line breaks. Testing line breaks. Testing line breaks. Testing line breaks.

I don't think the Twins should be in a rush to dangle top prospects but if the team is 40-10 red hot going into the deadline, that's the time to move prospects as capital to push toward October. After all, the goal is winning today, not tomorrow. That doesn't mean it's wise to sell tomorrow without hesitation but we watched the Twins stand pat at the deadline year after year in the 2000s and, in the end, all we experienced in October was failure.

Looking at the schedule, I see what you mean. The Twins have six against the Sox in July and just three more against them the rest of the season. If they don’t do serious damage to Chicago in July, it makes it very hard to see the Twins catching them under any circumstances.

This is kind of amazing and I didn't see this coming at all. It appears they're taking a pretty thorough approach at community engagement and de-escalation. As a former Northsider myself, I had been in the old store more times than I can count and I will happily continue to shop Cub. https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/land-of-10000-stories/looted-and-burned-northside-cub-returns-with-new-store-model/89-36d8d07f-5351-4b7e-942e-131d5fe6b58e?fbclid=IwAR3biL1b58pFRhRwLnW92MmPR9Pl38g8q-wiIchmjvlIZQYDTmGLDdy8JWs

What happens if the Twins go 8-7 or 9-6 against those teams while playing decently against the rest? Is selling still the best option? It seems way too early to declare anything "the best option" when there are 50 games to be played before a decision should be made and 56-58 games before a decision must be made.

We disagree on Sano but I just don't see much of a reason to trade him, though he should be shopped (shouldn't everyone, though?). If he's bad, no one wants him. If he's good, the Twins want him unless they're also offloading Buxton and Berrios and Company, and that seems really really unlikely to me.

Oh, I think pretty much everyone agrees he is underperforming, the only quibbling seems to be over to what degree he is underperforming. Everyone I know agrees that those errors have been killing the team but they're also wildly uncharacteristic of Donaldson and errors aren't something I really think of as the first thing to decline. In other words, I don't think the blundering stone handed errors we've seen continue going forward, though they sure stung in the moment. It should also be pointed out that Donaldson only recently stopped hitting. Until a week or so ago, his offensive production was quite good. Is he in a minor slump or something else? Hard to say and time will tell. Season Totals Split G GS PA AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG OPS BAbip tOPS+ sOPS+ 2021 Totals 36 34 143 119 17 28 7 0 5 19 0 0 21 22 .235 .343 .420 .763 .242 100 116 Last 7 days 8 7 32 24 4 2 0 0 0 3 0 0 6 5 .083 .250 .083 .333 .095 -7 -1 Last 14 days 15 14 63 50 6 8 1 0 2 9 0 0 11 11 .160 .302 .300 .602 .154 60 69 Last 28 days 26 24 108 88 13 17 6 0 4 15 0 0 18 18 .193 .324 .398 .722 .191 89 102 Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table Generated 5/25/2021.