Matthew Lenz

Interesting fun fact! Not sure how it fits in with what I said in the message you quoted ?

If you look back at his time with the Twins, he either was not the best pitcher on the team or was nearly equivalent to another pitcher: 2017 - Ervin Santana was just as productive as Berrios. 2018 - maybe an exception to my rule although Jake Odorizzi was pretty solid too 2019 - Jake Odorizzi was better over the entire season and was a Cy Young candidate in the 1st half 2020 - Kenta Maeda Cy Young candidate 2021 - definite exception to the rule in a s***show season where any pressure to produce was nonexistent by June 1 when they clearly weren't a playoff team. And if he can't have fun and produce when he's relied on, then he's absolutely not a bulldog or a pitcher that I want on my team. I want a pitcher who's a competitor and up for the challenge and finds fun in being the guy his team can rely on.

In his Twins career Berrios had an "average" BB/9 and averaged less than 6 innings per start. Sure, he had a good amount of strikeouts but he danced around the zone too much to be considered a bulldog and you definitely couldn't not rely on him to give you 6-7 innings per outing. Yes, he gave you a chance, but as the teams #1 you expect more than that. All that said, in his month and a half with Toronto he's been the exact pitcher you described.

?

Well yea, they didn't give us any hope that this season would be fun by mid-April.

The second sentence of this is not needed to prove your point. Can't stand Laudner haha

I irrationally held it against Hunter for leaving while the Twins still had years of contention left. Was happy when he came back at the end though.

Wow, you might be the first person to accuse me of giving Berríos too much credit ? I hope the other TD guys checkout the thread today! I’ve been a “Berríos is a low end #2 on a contending team” guy for years. Of course I bought into the hype early on but quickly jumped off that wagon. I know you can’t totally discount 2 starts but the fact is that in the other seven starts he has 44.1 IP (avg 6.1) with a 1.83 ERA and an 18.33 K/BB. Aces aren’t perfect but if he can avoid anymore blow ups, which is career says he can’t, he might have the best August + September numbers in baseball.

Two of my favorite Twins of all-time were Denard Span and Pat Neshek. I loved the energy Denard brought to the team and will never forget watching him hit a huge game-thing triple against the White Sox in 2009. Man, the dome could get LOUD. Neshek’s unique delivery initially stood out to me and it was great to see him develop into one of the better relievers in baseball. On top of that, he’s “one of us” and he’s a great guy in the baseball card hobby who will sign anything you send to him and is a collector himself.

Twins Face Old Friend, José Berríos The Minnesota Twins are slated to face former ace-to-be José Berríos on Sunday who has a 3.31/3.47 ERA/FIP in his new threads with what would be a career best 5.50 K/BB if it were sustained over an entire season. Those numbers would be even better if you take out two starts where he allowed 10 earned runs with a K/BB of 9/7 over 7.1 innings pitched. For the first time in his career (I’m sensing a theme here), José Berríos is sustaining his first half success over the second half of the season. For the first time in his career (Ope, there it is again), José Berríos is consistently giving his team innings and production that he couldn’t do in his time with the Twins. For the first time in his career (ARGH), José Berríos has me thinking maybe he’s turned that corner that he could never turn as a member of the Minnesota Twins. And he’s doing all of it for a team that isn’t the Minnesota Twins. Blue Jays Old Friend, Josh Donaldson, Slugging Them Into Submission The Minnesota Twins 3B/DH is 3-for-8 with two bombs and 3 RBI so far in the series. In six games against his former club, where he won an MVP, two silver sluggers and a Hank Aaron Award, he has an OPS of 1.233 with five extra base-hits, seven runs scored, and eight runs batted in. Conversation Starter Who were your favorite old friends to follow even after they left the Minnesota Twins? I’ll share mine below!

I’d say acknowledging more than celebrating. The whiffs he’s generated in such few innings and his K/BB ratio have been very good this year. His ERA right now is better than Berríos career ERA entering 2020 and is better than Berríos ERA was at the same point in their careers. I’m not saying he is or will be better than Berríos, but in a crappy year I think we can acknowledge Ober has been a pleasant surprise for a guy who nobody would have expected to pitch for the Twins this season.

The Twins drop the series rubber match and fall to 63-80 on the season with a 5-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals on Sunday. Buxton, Brent, Bailey, and the Bullpen tried their best but the top of the Royals lineup was too much for the Twins. That and more in today's recap! Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports The Twins drop the series rubber match and fall to 63-80 on the season with a 5-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals on Sunday. Buxton, Brent, Bailey, and the Bullpen tried their best but the top of the Royals lineup was too much for the Twins. That and more in today's recap! Box Score Bailey Ober: 4.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 6 K (65.3-percent strikes) Homeruns: none Bottom 3 WPA: Sano (-.409), Alcala (-.184), Astudillo (-.154) Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs) Another Strong Start from Bailey Ober Take out the first six batters that Ober faced today and you would remove three of the five hits he gave up and both earned runs. Whit Merrifield and Nicky Lopez got things going early for the Royals offense with a double and single, respectively, followed by a Salvador Perez sacrifice fly giving the Royals an early 1-0 lead. Ober got out of the jam with back-to-back flyouts before giving up a 403 foot homerun to Adalberto Mondesi to begin the 2nd inning. He settled in quickly after the homerun, striking out six of the next seven batters he faced and retiring nine consecutive batters total, before giving up a single to Ryan O’Hearn to start the fifth. The O’Hearn single, coupled with a single from Sebastian Rivero in the nine hole, would mark the end Ober’s day as he was slated to face Merrifield with one out and runners on 1st and 2nd. Despite being at just 75 pitches, he was pulled in favor of recent call-up and fellow rookie reliever, Jovani Moran rather than being asked to face the top of the Royals lineup for a third time. Sometimes there is more to strong starts than innings pitched and strikeouts, especially when you’re looking for positives in an otherwise awful year. Ober has been a nice surprise for the Twins rotation as today marks his ninth consecutive starts of three earned runs or less. The naysayers will bring up the lack of the innings, many of those starts are five innings or less, but lest not forget he’s supposed to be in St. Paul right now. Instead, he’s pitching in Minneapolis and generated 16 whiffs today, which is elite when he only threw 75 pitches. Moreover, he’s quietly putting together one of the better rookie campaigns that people outside of Twins Territory have never heard of. Offense Can't Survive on Buxton's Multi-Hit Day Despite being a rookie, this was already Kris Bubic’s fifth appearance (fourth start) against the Minnesota Twins, who he has a 4.76 ERA against, but today would be different. After giving up a lead off double to Byron Buxton and a sacrifice fly to Luis Arraez two batters later, he would shut down the Twins giving up just two additional hits (Buxton again, then Simmons) over the next five innings. The Twins would chase him out in the sixth with a Buxton leadoff single, followed by a Rob Refsnyder single, Luis Arraez lineout, and Josh Donaldson walk to load the bases. Righty reliever Domingo Tapia would come on to strikeout Miguel Sano on just three pitches but wouldn’t come away unscathed after a clutch two-out double from Brent Rooker to knot the game at three runs apiece. Aside from Luis Arraez reaching on a Mondesi error in the eighth and a Kepler single in the ninth, the Twins offense went down quietly in the final three innings of the game. Bullpen Usage Chart Moran came on and immediately christened himself as a Twins reliever by allowing an inherited run to score off of a Whit Merrifield double. He settled in to finish the 5th but couldn’t finish the sixth after loading the bases with a lead off single and back-to-back walks with two outs. Ralph Garza Jr., who’s another rookie putting together a solid season, would need just one pitch to get out of the jam and pitched a clean seventh inning. Jorge Alcala pitched the eighth allowing the first two hitters to reach base and ended up allowing one of those runners to score on a Kyle Isbel single. Juan Minaya did more of the same in the ninth which resulted in the Twins chasing two runs entering the last half inning of the game. Despite the rough finish, it was a decent day overall for the bullpen who pitched 4 2/3 innings giving up just two earned runs. WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Minaya 0 0 40 0 17 57 Thielbar 8 0 0 26 0 34 Farrell 0 32 0 12 0 44 Colomé 0 0 12 0 0 12 Coulombe 0 15 0 23 0 38 Duffey 17 0 11 0 0 28 Alcalá 0 0 9 0 18 27 Garza Jr. 0 19 0 0 11 30 Moran 0 0 0 0 37 37 View full article

And another 1-pitch AB!

Astudillo being the hero by just grounding out on the 1st pitch instead of getting into a situation where he could strikeout.

Also an easy inning for the camera crew

Then strikeout three in a row ? "Interesting strategy cotton, let's see if it works out for them",

PAY THAT MAN

Started following the Twins in the late 90's/early 2000's, so my Twins Killer was probably David Ortiz...in more ways than one. I'm not going to look up the stats because I'm trying to enjoy my Sunday but it seemed like he just owned the Twins every time we faced him, which we didn't even do in the playoffs when he was at his best! Just salt in the wound after dealing him early in his career. On the flip side, Mauer versus the White Sox was always fun to watch. Again, didn't look up the stats so just going off observational memories but he's one I remember dominating the White Sox.

Royals Killer Max Kepler will look to add to his career .826 OPS against the Kansas City Royals in 322 plate appearances over 78 games which equates to roughly half a season of games played. If we extrapolate that to an entire season, he is slashing .266/.376/.826 with 18 homeruns, 96 runs scored, and 58 RBI. This season alone he's hit two homeruns with an OPS of .891 after Saturday night where he went 2-for-4 with a 2B and HR. Twins Killer Royals backstop, Salvador Perez, enters today with 576 career plate appearances over 141 games against the Minnesota Twins which is almost perfectly the equivalent to playing one full season. In "one season" of plate appearances against the Twins he is slashing .297/.325/.843 with 28 homeruns, 77 runs scored, and 98 RBI with a "great" strikeout percentage, per Fangraphs definitions. He's in the midst of a career year at the plate and that includes an OPS of .879 with five homeruns in 15 games played against the Twins, although he's just 1-for-9 in this current series. Lineups are not yet out for Sundays matchup against Bailey Ober, but if he's in the lineup...he could be looking to rebound from the first two games. Conversation Starter Who are some other "Twins Killers" you recall and remember watching throughout the years? Or, who are some Twins that would seemed to shine against a certain opponent? I'll share one of mine below!

@BigHat you're right, I gave Jax a little too much credit...although was comparing it to 15 ER in his previous two starts which was a low bar! Thanks for the read and the kind words!

Given he lost a professional season and he came straight out of high school, yes I would say it's too early.

Thanks! Hard to turn down talking Twins...even in a bad year!

The Twins had some clutch hitting today from an unlikely hero beating the best and hottest team in baseball 6-5. The victory improves the Twins record to 59-77 on the season as they avoided the three game sweep. Read about that and more in today's game recap! Image courtesy of © Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports The Twins had some clutch hitting today from an unlikely hero beating the best and hottest team in baseball 6-5. The victory improves the Twins record to 59-77 on the season as they avoided the three game sweep. Read about that and more in today's game recap! Box Score Griffin Jax: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 3 K (55-percent strikes) Homeruns: none Top 3 WPA: Gordon (.364), Colomé (.194), Arraez (.171) Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs) Jax Bounces Back After Two Abysmal Starts Jax entered today giving up 15 earned runs in his last two starts combined, and was able to have a passable start given his recent struggles. From the start, Jax was benefiting from some near misses starting with the leadoff batter hitting a deep fly ball into the right field corner, another deep flyball to start the second inning, and then a ball off of the bat of Yandy Diaz that had an xBA of .690 to end the second. Regardless, he was able to get through the first two innings unscathed although that would be a sign of things to come for the end of his day. The luck of the near misses through the first two innings were balanced out by three different batted balls, two off the glove of Luis Arraez and one off of Nick Gordon, that would have undoubtedly made for shorter innings and less damage against Jax. Although none of these balls were considered errors, they were plays that gloves of Donaldson and Polanco would likely have vacuumed up for outs. Luckily, the Twins bullpen was most fresh after pitching just one inning on Friday, as Jax only lasted 4 ⅔ innings when the Rays started making consistent hard contact off of the rookie right hander. Coming into today, Jax had given up nine home runs and 11 walks in 27 innings in the month of August. As previously mentioned, there were some close calls today but outside of the homerun to Brandon Lowe he kept the ball in the ballpark and made the Rays earn their bases only giving up one walk. Even on the homerun to Lowe, Glen Perkins had some interesting insight as to how Lowe pulled a low and away breaking ball 365 feet. Clutch Two-Out Rallies Lift the Twins to Victory Luis Arraez started off the game for the Twins getting robbed of a line drive single by Wander Franco in what would foreshadow Luis Patiño’s day against the slumping Twins offense. After a quick first inning, the Twins would score three two-out runs with hitters six thru nine all reaching base, including Willians Astudillo’s first walk since drawing back-to-back walks on June 16th. The Twins would tack on a fourth run in the third inning after aggressive baserunning by Josh Donaldson creating a balk to get to second and taking third on a ball in the dirt. The headsy baserunning would pay off after a bloop two-out single by Jake Cave allowed Donaldson to score easily, giving the Twins a 4-0 lead. The Twins put together another threat in the fourth after an Arraez single and a Buxton double that would have been a run-scoring triple had it stayed in the ballpark. Alas, it was ruled a ground-rule double (bounced off the foul pole and back into play) and the next batter, Jorge Polanco, would hit a line drive to Wander Franco who flipped it to third to double off Arraez. After getting 1-2-3 innings in the fifth and sixth, the bottom of the line up would come through again with Nick Gordon tying the game at five runs apiece with another two-out RBI hit. And that wouldn't even be the end of Nick Gordon's career day. After more aggressive baserunning by Donaldson and with one out in the ninth and runners on 1st and 3rd, Gordon punched a single up the middle to give the Twins the 6-5 lead and ultimately the win. If you were paying attention closely, you realized that five of the six Twins runs were scored with two-outs and Nick Gordon was responsible for half of the runs scored today. Bullpen Usage Chart The Twins made the right call in pulling Griffin Jax but, in what seems like the “Twins Way” this year, the inherited runner was allowed to score when Caleb Thielbar immediately gave up a two-run homerun to Austin Meadows. Thielbar finished the fifth but wasn’t able to finish the sixth after a lead off walk and a comebacker fielder's choice, and was relieved by righty Jorge Alcala. After a first pitch swinging strike by Mike Zunino, he got the backstop to ground into an inning ending double play and would get through the seventh only allowing a double to Franco. Tyler Duffey came on in the eighth and pitched a 1-2-3 thanks to Ryan Jeffers gunning down a would-be base stealer before handing over the save opportunity to Alex Colomé in the ninth. As usual, Colomé would make things very interesting in the ninth but ultimately earned the saved after a 23 pitch inning. TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Gibaut 0 24 0 0 47 0 71 Minaya 24 11 0 0 21 0 56 Garza Jr. 17 0 0 8 23 0 48 Colomé 0 0 0 0 11 23 34 Thielbar 26 0 0 0 0 28 54 Alcalá 0 0 0 0 0 15 15 Duffey 16 0 0 0 0 10 26 Coulombe 0 10 0 0 0 0 10 View full article