wavedog

Wow, Gibson-Long and German combined to strikeout 19 St. Lucie batters. Thanks as always for these updates - they provide a nice alternative from focusing on the parent club's performance.

Pineda has been very consistent when he has pitched - the one issue I have is that he has had a hard time completing a full season either due to injury or suspension. He is not getting any younger either. He would probably be a fairly valuable trade asset come deadline time as the acquiring team knows he only has to last a couple of months with them and he will give them a solid consistent performance. To me if we get a valuable offer we have to trade him. This assumes his forearm stiffness is nothing and goes away. I would not object to keep him if either he signed a team-friendly 2 yr contract at about the same level he is now and we do not get a valuable trade offer for him. Next year in the rotation we have Maeda, Berrios and maybe Dobnak plus bringing up a rookie or two and and/or signing another FA so I don't think re-signing or extending him squeezes anyone out. We will still need arms to let the prospects develop.

I am particularly enjoying Refsnyder's surprise showing. Realize that is going against his track record, but he is taking quality at-bats and playing solid defense. Not meaning to throw Cave under the bus and I know he is out hurt but I would rather see Refsnyder as the backup outfielder over him since he hits right and we have a lot of left-hand bats in the OF.

I have seen them play enough bad baseball this year to attribute very little if any of their futility to bad luck. Losing has been a team effort - one part of the team will always fail at a key moment - if it is not the Starting Pitching, then the Bullpen blows a lead, if the bullpen pitches well, then the defense caves in, if not that then the offense stagnates. Sometimes everything falters. Also consistently not delivering with men in scoring position - the offense has been disjointed. The team has been disjointed. Almost wonder if the playoff futility has impacted them mentally. Do they need a mental coach or better coaching? What is up with the bullpen allowing inherited runners to score at a record pace - bad pitching or bad preparation. I can't attribute that to bad luck at this point because the bullpen has been consistently awful. Maybe bad luck that the every pitcher in the bullpen has collapsed at various points - there has not been a constant reliable arm to calm the storm. Astudillo hits well except when it is a pressure situation - then we can count on a pop-up, double-play or one of his rare strikeouts. Bad luck or can't rise up to the moment or just not good enough? Honestly Refsnyder has come up and hit and hit with men in scoring position - I know that won't last, but at least it is refreshing to see.

One thought I had regarding the 6th inning decision - there were runners on 2nd and 3rd and one out. Vaughn was up and Collins was on deck. I was thinking if we should have walked Vaughn to pitch to Collins who is not as good a hitter. Would also set up the force at any base or double-play but then a walk forces in a run and Pineda just walked 2 people and Robles is know to give up a walk. Collins might have been pinch-hit for as well but Collins seemed to be struggling so I thought that could have been another choice.

I have noticed that as well this year - that other teams seem to have more stable lineups. It seems the Twins are attempting some analytic lineup model. Even in past playoff games they may have trotted out a lineup that was different that what was used in the regular season. I don't know if there might not be greater value in lineup consistency in terms of offensive rhythm and production - getting big inning rallies. As you mentioned there have been injuries and positive covid tests this year which lead to more changes but guys seem to be moved up and down in the order a good bit more than other teams.

Well, at least we have the minor league report now that their season has started. Nice diversion from this same play reel.

Not sure our bullpen could be much worse - it is a slow painful torture to even watch them pitch.

Their main issue is that they are playing "October Playoff baseball". Unfortunately its the Twins version of playoff baseball. I feel like it has continued into this season with the offense. Individual players have been hot but they have not had a team offense yet. Between injuries and resting and Covid lineups have been all over the place - there is still time to Gel but can't waste too much more time and this is very difficult to watch.

Half-joking here but I have a suggestion for watching Twins games - watch for the the first 3 hours and then turn off the game - don't waste more of your time. Colome needs to be moved to mop-up duty and too many dead spots in the line-up - yes that means you Sano, Cave and Jeffers. Its early and I am sure those batters and relievers can turn things around.

Yesterday's loss was painful but there were many good points highlighted here in the Article - Maeda pitching out of difficulty, Buxton, Kepler at the plate, Stashak, Rogers and Robles in the Bullpen. Perhaps most worrisome to me is the 17 K's but just one game we will see how it plays out. Watching the White Sox-Angels game made me feel a little better. Chicago had some issues in the field late and their bullpen blew the lead in the 8th. Iglesias closing for the Angels looked pretty Haderish - right-handers had some futile swings against him.

Great write-up Parker! Very interesting and informative. Excited to see him pitch this season.

I am fortunate to be a Twins fan that lives in Texas so I will subscribe to mlb.tv again and catch most of the games. I’ll miss the Houston and Texas games which will be blacked out. I have YouTube TV which does not have the local FoxSW channel any more.

I was counting on the time spent together as a time for the players to share their viewpoints on discrimination. When you have a personal interaction that can have more impact than just reading a tweet or even as well-meaning as they are and I applaud the team for coming together and choosing to take their action to boycott - the boycotts. To go with the ride-along - the league could hold a discrimination online seminar on the same day with the police and players watching together. Probably start the morning with that and that invites further discussion during the day.

I have a suggestion for the next player/team boycott over police actions and this can apply to all leagues. I work for a company that has a significant sales force. Often the corporate folks will disparage the sales people out in the field - why can't they sell while the sales people would say why can't the corporate folks support us better. We have a ride with the rep option so that both sides can get a better understanding what the other does. My suggestion would be for the next boycott shut down all all games for a day and the players, managers, owners take a shift with a police officer in their area. This way each side will get a better understanding of what the other goes through. It is called building bridges as opposed to lobbing grenades. We have seen enough tweets and speeches on this topic to know it is an issue how about some action.

A couple of meandering points: I am glad the team took the statue down before they were taken down by protesters possibly causing injury and further damage to the stadium. The team put the statue up they can take it down. Statues are put up to honor folks that made significant contributions. The Griffiths owned the Senators/Twins for over 70 years - Calvin brought the team to Minnesota and owned the team for approximately 30 years so on that side that is of some certain significance. Personally I grew up following the team under his ownership and did not like him - he was cheap, in the Free Agency era all the good players left the team, and he made countless foolish comments, one being Waseca. I was glad when he sold the team. He has been labeled as a racist - he kept the players segregated back in the early 60's until he was called on it. The Waseca comment - Carew's comment in 1979 about not being a slave on his plantation and then an offset in Carew's latest statement saying that he did not believe Griffith was a racist from his personal experience which somewhat distorts the clear picture of the first 3 items or at least the 3rd one. I read the SI article on Mike Tucker who was the loudest voice in wanting to bring down Calvin's statue for racism. In the article there was this interesting quote from Mike " Tucker says. “The minority and people of color players the Twins have had, I’ve always been the biggest fans of them.” Would you consider that comment racist or different side of the coin? If Calvin Griffith had said "The White players the Twins had - they have always been my favorites" might that have been a pretty big deal - worse than Waseca? I have seen comments that the removal of the statues is not about erasing history. In the comment from the Twins it states "We cannot remove Calvin Griffith from the history of the Minnesota Twins" so there it is stated in writing - however that comment sure makes it sound like if they would if they could. As I said I have meandered on enough - I did not celebrate his statue going up or coming down. I did not know Calvin personally, walk in his shoes or know his mind and heart. The issue of how big a racist he was may be a little more complex, clouded by his cheapness, countless stupid comments over time and unless we get a little more explanation on Carew's latest comments that contradict his comments from the late 70's.

Not very impressed with Manfred as well in terms of this negotiation, marketing the game, and contracting the minor leagues as other examples. He should be able to get both sides to move to a compromise. The owners haven't really budged in their offers - but on the other-hand the players have not come off of getting paid 100% of their prorated salaries for any games they play. From their point that was agreed to in March but there is some question about if that was including games with no fans or not. That part is on the owners for agreeing to that without stipulating caveats. I put the majority of the blame on the owners but I am not letting the players totally off the hook. This is bargaining and in bargaining both sides have to give up something. Play 50 games or play none - either is fine with me. I really feel for the minor league players and minor league local ownership groups.

Posting my baseball update during this quiet time as I am home-officing: Former Twin Danny Santana just ran up and down our street with his wife. Yesterday he ran shirtless with his kids and mother-in-law while doing bicep curls. They are renting the house across the street from us. That's all I got....

Maybe better to go with Buxton and Kepler in the outfield and 5 infielders. Hopefully we focus on defensive improvement in Spring training to at least try to make it to average.

Since we can't fill our rotation its for the protection of our fans when the other team is batting - the netting will extend to the outfield seats.

For the right price and contract length - sure I would bring him back. I think he will have a solid bounce-back season next year. I am guessing his agent put out that note about the interest - if there that much interest in him then the price and length may fall out of a reasonable range for us if we want to bring Odorizzi back and sign a top grade starter.

Berrios kind of pitched like he has the last 2 months - so I thought he did OK - he battled and the wheels didn't fall off for him. With better defense it would have been pretty good. Personally I would have started him at home in game 3 though. I was surprised as Stashak in the 6th 0ne run behind. I was expecting May for the 6th, Romo for the 7th and then Rogers for the 8th and 9th. When Gibson came in for the 7th all I had hope for was a miracle - but unfortunately he looked just like he has looked the past few outings and turned the game into an unwatchable experience. Also Rosario and Cron have not been good the past couple of weeks either so they are continuing their trends. Best that can be said is today is a new day - start at 0-0 . However the batting and hitting approach has to get better if we want different results.

Let's go win this! Selections make sense - my only slight surprises were Adrianza over Astudillo was Adrianza going to be well enough to play and Smeltzer over Perez but no complaints there.

I think I would lean to Odorizzi in Game 1, Dobnak in game 2 and then Berrios at Home. I don't know this as fact but I am guessing Odorizzi would handle the pressure of the first start better and he has pitched better down the stretch. Dobnak I want for Yankee stadium since he is more prone to throw grounders. Not sure what to do for Game #4 if necessary. Since the series is play 2 games then a day rest, play 2 games then a day rest I think our best relievers can go back-to-back games if we want to have game #4 be a reliever game. All hands on deck for game #5

I cut the cord with AT&T 3 months ago and switched to YouTubeTV so I have lucked out in this case and can catch all the games. As other comments have mentioned - you can watch YouTubeTV at home on your TV or anywhere on your tablet or phone as well. Saved a significant amount of money and I upgraded my internet service to make sure the bandwidth supported it. I have had no issues so far unless you are tied to surfing by Channel numbers. I also bought MLB.tv this year - so another case of real good fortune in timing - I live out of market so not sure how the playoffs will be handled in market. I thought I read where if you have MLB.tv the games on MLB Network will be available as well, but I couldn't watch any of the local Texas or Houston games this year on MLB.tv