Whammy

Fragoza now at Cedar Rapids, by the way

Almost HAS to be

I'm not super interested in witnessing Larnach's regression for $7M, when we have Buxton, Keashcall, Emma, and Jenkins who will all almost certainly be on the Twins and playing OF most of next year (though I could see an Emma trade). Seems like he could have some value to an org that's not so log jammed with lefty corner OF. If you can move him for some middling bullpen help or a minor league lottery ticket, I'd do that. If not, then I personally would non-tender him.

Twins bullpen ERA since 6/30 ranks tied for 3rd in baseball at 2.99 Player ERA Kody Funderburk 0.46 A.J. Minter 1.13 Tommy Nance 1.46 Andrew Morris 2.11 Yoendrys Gómez 2.25 Taylor Rogers 2.40 Jeff Hoffman 3.00 Travis Adams 3.93

Seems like everyone should be pretty available. Even probably Yo-Go if necessary. They've used him three straight games earlier this season, but that was back when our bullpen was a hot mess. It could be that with more solid options and the off day tomorrow they just put Gomez off limits and give him two full days of rest. Nance collecting dust is a little odd (especially on Saturday). I think I'd rather see Rojas up for the road trip and plan for Prielipp to only go 4 innings on Friday and Rojas go 2-3 innings.

I think the biggest reason to move him off of CF is that he misses a lot of time, not that he's merely adequate out there now. It would be the same story with a SS, or to a lesser extent 3B (Catcher also but that's a whole different category here) Those are the hardest positions to fill on the fly. When he inevitably misses time, you're scrambling to field an adequate defensive replacement. Him missing time becomes a double-whammy of missing his bat in the lineup and then either putting an empty bat in the lineup that's capable of playing CF or moving one of your reasonable bats to CF and crossing your fingers defense. That's not the case if he's your primary LF. Sure the defense probably takes a hit when he's out. but the list of guys that can play an adequate LF is way longer than the list of guys that can play an adequate CF. Finding a replacement for 1 game, 1 week, or 1 month shouldn't be very difficult. I fear two things though: 1) They will defer to Buxton, who will not want to move from CF. I get it. He's earned that right a little. He's a 10+ year vet who's the face of the franchise. It'll be a tough conversation with him. Have him be a great defender at a non-premium defensive position rather than an adequate defender at a premium defensive position. Frame it that way. Let us ooh and ahh for the next 4 years over what an awesome defensive LF he is. 2) The Twins will be wishy-washy with it. Gotta rip the band-aid off. Don't make it part time. Once he's moved from CF, make it permanent. Can he roam around out there in a pinch? Yes. The same way that Lewis can still technically man 3B and Keaschall can technically man 2B. But don't make it part of the plan. Move him and be done with it.

Really nice win

That assumes an on target throw. But timing wise your probably right

Ball was blistered and Acuña has a cannon. Still felt a little weird

Well sure… with that attitude

Minter to face the leadoff lefty maybe ?

Jeffers takes an awful lot of middle middle fastballs

Is this Morneau’s burner?

He was going along really well. 2 base runners through 5. Low pitch count Then he walked the leadoff guy in the 6th and things snowballed.

Not quite that succinctly (no surprise), but yeah, basically

Quitting and sucking are two very different things. It’s not that athletes never quit, I just think it’s an easy thing to say when athletes aren’t succeeding. To me it just sounds incredibly silly. Just like when fans complain about the front office not having a plan. No. They have a plan. They just didn’t tell you about it.

No they didn’t. They just didn’t play well.

Yeah. I bet that’s what happened. They thought to themselves “we’re good. We don’t need to try any more”

I’m not here to tell you that Morris pitched great, but I bet the expected BA for the Phillies in that inning was quite low

Bohm got out on the 3rd pitch. Every other batter has had a 2-1 count though.

Has Kremer been 2-1 on every batter?

The announcers can see pitch count right? Nola at 70 pitches through 3-2/3, and they’re talking about how deep in the game he’s going

Gotta get 5 outs this inning I guess

Brandon Marsh… really likable dude, but man, that hair!

10 out of our last 13 games giving up a first inning run.