MMMordabito

Maybe no more human tractor pulls?

I agree, but the title of the article was definitely leaning toward the very high expectation. I'm not going to do that, especially with my current string of luck.

The Twins definitely need something like this to happen, but I'm not going to bank on it. I'll be happy to see him called up, but I'm not going to get giddy about some possible Price or K-Rod-esque playoff performance. Asking for a 5-1 homestand against Chicago and Detroit seemed much more reasonable, and we can't even have something nice like that. If I start wishing for a Graterol-led miracle, he'll probably come up and blow out his elbow two pitches in. This is all my fault. I went to the one game that they lost to Detroit, and I lost Sale, Tatis, Lowe, Anderson and now probably Peralta to season ending injures in basically one week of fantasy baseball. Maybe I should start wearing palehose and pinstripes and putting feathers in my hair .... Then the Twins can start winning and all the rivals and other playoff chasers can get some of this evil mojo.

Really disappointing week. Needed a rally on Saturday just to scrape to .500 for the week against two teams that have already thrown in the towel. Looking at those uniforms all weekend just made it worse.

I was just gifted a "Crony" shirt at the gate, so I guess that's my favorite now. Apparently, there is a referendum that I'm supposed to vote in favor of .....

I don't think any of the names hold a candle to "Boomstick" or "La Makina". "La Regadera" doesn't roll quite as smoothly, but it might grow on me. I can roll my r's about as well or slightly worse than Dick Bremer, so I could see this one being higher on the list for someone more skilled in Spanish phonetics. I like Caveman and Garv Sauce (I'm surprised they aren't marketing bottles of hot sauce yet). Pass on the rest.

On top of that ... Berrios can ill-afford another dud, especially against this team

It would be great if Bailey Ober can finish out the year healthy. He deals when he's not on the trainer's table. He obviously has command of the zone and those 12 Ks were all of the swinging variety (one foul tip). 76/96 strikes/pitches. Incredible.

Yes

Francisco Lindor agrees that he should be called back up before the next series against Cleveland.

As long as a no team latches on to Baby Shark, those types of traditions are welcome when I go to a stadium.

Your whole take is great, but this is the best part of it. It's the seventh inning stretch. Let's all get up stretch and sing a fun, traditional song about the wonder of a baseball game together.

That blows my expectations then .... I was expecting 7 shutout innings in game 7 of the World Series from Dobnak and six up/ six down via strike out from Graterol to finish it off ... Arraez can take care of the single run against Kershaw with a perfectly placed inside-the-park home run in the top of the 9th Anything less, and I'm never watching the Twins again.

Hypothetical, but highly possible situation ... 39 of 40 decisions have been made regarding the off-season roster (including how many spots to leave open for FAs) before the Rule 5 draft. Are the Twins protecting Javier or Celestino?

Let's hope Oakland is cold out of the shoot like this season.

Oakland and Seattle in March. At least someone was thinking.

He needs to move up quickly, since he'll need to be on the 40 already.

Gotta do something to justify adding talent to the 40-man ... These guys are going to get picked off left and right come Rule 5 time otherwise.

... and a .500 OBP for the top 4 .... Great day!

"Pineda and Jose Berrios both have ERA’s south of 3.20 since June 1st, and Kyle Gibson is performing well with a 3.97 mark. Throwing out his nine-run blowup against the Yankees, Jake Odorizzi owns a 3.18 ERA in his last 4 turns and was the ERA leader early in the season. Wanting a starter at the deadline was a fair hope for the front office and fans alike, but with only Marcus Stroman as a realistic option, opportunity was hardly missed by passing on guys like Mike Leake, Tanner Roark, and Jordan Lyles." Giving Berrios a pass on a terrible day at the park is OK, because he has been really good otherwise. The rest of this take is nonsense. Pineda is hurt again. How can the team realistically count on him when it's going to count? Anyone can throw out a terrible start and make numbers look better overall. That's misrepresentation with Odorizzi, because the guy can't go deep in ballgames and hurts the team in other ways by doing that. Sweeping his turd against the Yankees under the rug is a huge cop-out. Gibson only performs well against bad teams when nothing extra is asked of him. Needs some innings eaten up after an extra-innings marathon. Nope. Fail. Need to set the tone early in a huge series with your biggest competitor. Nope. Fail. Badly. You know what Mike Leake does well. He pitches deep into ballgames. Writing him off in sour grapes fashion isn't really fair. I'd much rather have him that Martin Perez or Kyle Gibson in the rotation. I would trade both for Leake today, if given the opportunity, and never look back. I'd even throw in another prospect to sweeten the pot for the other party. It's going to be very interesting this off-season right around the time of the Rule 5 draft. The Twins will have to expose some guys. They might even have to expose some guys that they traded for in 2018. If they get selected, that will be a big Falvine fail, because they made the bed by not properly utilizing the assets. If they couldn't get takers on those assets when there was a chance to improve the team, then they are bad salespeople and perhaps someone else should be in charge. Twisting the parts around to present a better picture is lame. Painting the pitching issues as not-as-bad-as-it-seems and then stating that the Atlanta series was only lost because of some clunker pitching performances is self-contradiction. Calling it like I see it ... One and done on October 2, or at best a series loss (3-1) at Target Field on October 8. This pitching staff just doesn't have the depth for anything more.

Done with Gibson. He's not a gamer. As loosely stated above, he never delivers when it really matters. I suppose one could argue that all the games are either worth one win or one loss, but there are times when the tone needs to be set or the team needs a pickup. Gibson never delivers in those situations. Don't even think about QO. Just let him walk and he can go disappoint a different fanbase.