Dantes929

“You're never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you're never as bad as they say when you lose." This one is even better "If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same." All I ever want out of the Twins is to have meaningful games in September and then let the chips fall where they may. Hopefully that results in the playoffs. Well, these games mean something. When we were 20-10 everyone was gaga over how good a team we had. Now somehow, everyone is horrible and will never be anything but horrible. They are just a spark away from being good again. Will they find that spark? That's up to the players. That's baseball.

If you are looking at 2019 why not look at the most recent 2019 where he was MVP of the Arizona Fall League. I don't know if he is ready but this whole idea of we don't know how he will do is kind of silly. We didn't know how Dobnak or Arraez or for that matter how May or Duffey would do last year. We didn't even know how Cruz would do. He could have been another in what fans around here have called another washed up veteran. The idea that internal reports won't be honest might be true in what is made public but they are certainly going to be honest in determining if he is ready. If they think he is ready this seems like a pretty good time to try him out.

Fine with all of them. Would have liked to see the electronic strike zone. Seems like a good year to try it out.

He never was or would be living under a bridge. Do you really think he was doing it selfishly? He had the president of the USA calling him a thug along with half of social media calling him every other name and he continued. He had no idea of a lawsuit at the time and knew it could hurt his chance of resigning yet he continued. He may have come out of it financially fine but at the time it took the courage and knowledge of consequences that you were calling for as a prerequisite to be taken seriously. Why do I have the feeling if someone brought up MLK you would say he did it for the PAC money. I get your point about virtue signalling. To me those that only started holding their hats over their hearts during the Anthem after Koepernick were virtue signalling that they were true patriots. Now it takes no courage to kneel during the Anthem because everyone is doing it. Its virtue signalling if you are only doing it because everyone else is doing it. It actually takes courage at times not to kneel and to show respect for the military or the country. That's not right either. Protesting against injustice should not automatically come with sacrifice. That right was gained by those before us sacrificing for that right. If anything the cost and sacrifice should be placed upon those that have benefited from or perpetuated the injustice. In essence that is what is happening now. On an individual basis there is still the responsibility for ones actions and there should be consequences for violence and destruction brought upon those committing it.. On a collective basis though if a significant portion of the population feels marginalized and then ignored for so long its going to boil over eventually and you will get what you get.

I don't think there was any thought at all to Duffey pitching the 6th. I am sure the plan was for Alcala to pitch 2 innings, Poppen one and Duffey to close.. The idea that our bullpen has been taxed because of bullpen games just feels wrong. May, Romo and Rogers pitched two days in a row because we won games 5-4 and 3-2. If we had starters go 6 innings both days that is still probably what would have happened.

This.. I said before the game that it seemed like the Twins were sacrificing this one in order to increase their odds for tomorrow's game. On the road against arguably the best pitcher this year. Even at that we had a pretty fair shot at beating them. Looking at that reliever chart it doesn't seem like we are in such bad shape.

Alcala has been great. Just had a bad night. Poppen had a great night. "Proven veterans" give up runs also. Its not like Lindor hasn't taken a lot of our guys deep before. We have too many quality relievers that need innings to stay sharp. Nothing has been trashed.

Alcala has had several days and there are a few guys that pitched on Sunday and should be just fine. I also believe Maeda can go more innings but probably makes sense to raise that gradually. He was averaging 84 pitches a start and then jumped up to 115 his last start as Jlease mentioned. That is a pretty big jump and in this case I am fine with erring on the cautious side. The design of this bullpen is to be very deep and it is always a balancing act when you have a lot of guys to pitch them enough to be sharp without being overworked. If Hill gives us 5 quality innings I will be happy. Feels like sacrificing a gimme win to the Indians and Bieber tonight to focus on the series win but you never know.

What's that all about?

Maybe Berrios found the right catcher. Nice win.

I would take the under as well. The problem with your unwritten rules are rules comment is this. Compare your first example to the link I am sharing. It was a perfect game in the 8th inning and down by two so already farther away from your examples. So it is absolutely arbitrary and I absolutely differ on the good sportsmanship. Its not good sportsmanship towards your teammates to consider your opponents feelings when it reduces your chances. In this example it was the 8th inning, down by 2 in a perfect game and might I add a point in the season where they were only down by one game in the standings. So in that case you have an opposing pitcher and manager that to this day rip on a guy for bunting and violating baseball's unwritten rules. I remember at the time Tony Gwynn countering that his guy did nothing wrong and vaguely remember another all star at the time saying something like "If he was my teammate and thought his best chance of getting on base was to bunt but didn't bunt because someone on the other team thought it was violating an unwritten rule I wouldn't want him on my team." How can you have unwritten rules when no one knows what the unwritten rules are? https://www.mlb.com/news/tbt-bunt-spoils-curt-schilling-s-perfecto-c180341170

"Bunting late in a game solely to break up a no-hit bid is one I think should draw some ire." I might agree with this if your team is up by 15 with 2 outs in the 9th...Maybe. Otherwise, absolutely not. Why should a team care about the opposing pitcher's no hitter aside from trying not to be the team he no hits? What value is a no hitter if the opposing team doesn't use every way at their disposal to get a hit? I've been a fan of baseball for 50 years. I didn't grow up with this kind of BS.

"The “unwritten rules” of baseball are such an embarrassment to the sport. You have a generational superstar in Tatis Jr. and he’s being told not to hit a home run because he shouldn’t hurt the other team's feelings." Anyone complaining if he pops up to the infield? No, didn't think so. If this stupid unwritten rule is so important to them then just put in a written rule that if you are up by such and such and have a 3-0 count it automatically turns to 3-1 without throwing a pitch. Ridiculous.

No way. The most he's ever made was 14 mil a year and is making 12 mil now. Most David Ortiz ever made was 16 mil. He's been awesome but I don't see anyone offering him multiple years at his age. No need to do anything for next year at this point either. Just beat the highest bidder. If he likes it here and keeps being productive he'll get paid.

I am ok with Dobnak being in the Cy Young conversation as long as he is sub 2 ERA and as long as Lance Lynn is still in the conversation. Here is a list of current MLB starters that don't need to be dead on to be successful....... Ok, there might be a few, but not a lot. Giving up two home runs is not a good example of being destroyed. Every year there are 4 or 5 guys in the top 30 or so that have similar strikeout rates. He's not Cy Young material but the longer he keeps it up think more Brad Radke, Dallas Kuechel, Mark Buehrle and less Kevin Slowey, Mike Pelfrey and Tommy Milone. Not that the last three weren't useful in their day.

I guess we should be aiming to win every game regardless of the opponent. The most likely outcome with a good team against a bad team in 4 games is good team winning 3. The 2nd most likely outcome is splitting. Winning two out of three with a good chance of taking the 4th is a good result and one I would have been happy with before the double header yesterday. Going 2-5 against a bad team is only a bad sign if that is all they played. If they should win a little over 60% which is what they did last year and what is expected of them this year then they have achieved that goal by going 14-8 so far. I would say it is a good sign that they have gone 2-4 against the worst team and still are in 1st place and on the same pace as last year.

He's never been my favorite pitcher but its a little early to write off Berrios. Last year he was awesome for 4 months and then not so much. If he is mediocre the first half this year and then finds it for the playoffs (presuming playoffs and the twins still in it) that would be a great result. I never thought he was an ace but certainly he has had stretches where he pitched like one. That happens in the playoffs also. He has time to find it.

We loaded the bases with no outs against Severino and he got out of it with no damage. Dobnak loads them up with no outs, was pulled and all inherited runners scored. I didn't like the move because to that point Dobnak had a short history of battling and executing quality pitches in tough situations. Now of course he could have just as easily given up those runs but my level of confidence in him was such that I wish he had been left in. I had more confidence in Odorizzi last year but by the end of the year next in line was Dobnak and Pineda over Berrios. I don't get the logic that says he is pitching like CY Young against weaker lineups, the rest of the staff gives up twice as many runs against the same lineups but Dobnak benefits from it more. Of course, he could end up getting shelled by anyone any time but until it happens my confidence in him is as great as it is in anyone.

Just curious. What gives him the edge over Dobnak?

All for it but would consider Alcala as a starter also.

At a minimum he has so far proved that he should have been one of the top 5 to start the season. Just think if the top 5 had stayed healthy and just pitched mediocre Dobnak would still be on the outside looking in, probably pitching long relief.

I agree,its not black and white. Its 50 shades of grey. A few years ago Santana was throwing upper 90's in the playoff game against New York. He didn't have very good command with it but whatever mechanics change that was causing him to throw 4-5 mph more than the rest of the season was also messing with his bread and butter slider. I don't know how increased velocity affects Berrios. Maybe these are just growing pains while he figures stuff out. Maybe he is better off leaving the fastball be and getting a little more north south on his curve ball. Heck, there's 50 shades of gray with Berrios alone. For myself, I don't think velocity is the be all, end all. I get more excited when I hear a pitcher has command and "stuff" of which velocity is just one of the components. Significant, yes but just part of the package.

Back when we were losing 90+ games a season I used to say the worst part was watching bad baseball. You can have lesser talent but still hit the cutoff, hustle on base paths, execute bunt defense, advance runners, battle every at bat. It was hard to watch back then and its hard to watch now.

Pretty sure Buxton's homer was to go ahead by two rather than game tying. Still in first but would be nice to take a game tomorrow.

Rogers got 3 outs in 5 pitches the other night and none of these balls were hit any harder than those. Its not rust and it doesn't matter who they play. Its baseball. Rogers pitched well and a few batted balls found spots. Every pitcher in the history of baseball has given up runs. Move on.