insagt1

watched that 1st inning. Sox 'd' looked worse than a little league team. They truly are a mess. Just thinking just maybe the best move the Twins didn't make was getting rid of Kepler. Somehow, since the ASG, he has ramped up his game both in the field and AB. Good thing too. We definitely need him in top form. Gallo getting a start is mind boggling. The guy just can't hit. 20 HR's or not, his other AB's are useless.

If Twins can win today they tie the season series and put Cleveland in a huge hole. While this game isn't critical...it is very important to win. Its a home game and its against a team that tormented them last year late. Time to reverse that. the bats were silent yesterday. Correa still hits into annoying DP's. This has not been a stellar year for him, but hopefully the best is yet to come. Jeffers has really cooled off after a real hot streak. Gallo is hopeless. Has there ever been a more unimpressive 20 HR hitter? OTOH, Taylor has 20 dingers. Is Buxton really going to be a huge improvement over that offensively if he takes over in CF? Sure Buck is a platinum defensive outfielder (when he is healthy) but this should be interesting to see what Rocco does next. Somehow through it all Twins have a 6 game lead. Its in their hands this week, if they want it bad enough.

my how baseball has changed thru the years. Used to be when a batter hit one hard, he put his head down, dropped his bat and sprinted to first until the ump signaled HR.Today, he stands at home and watches...then flips the bat or does some other thing before jogging around the bases. Thats not how it used to was boys and girls! The expression 'beaned'--exclusive for getting hit in the head....period. All else is HBP. All HBP are unintentional? Thats nonsense. Remember the expression 'purpose pitch'. Most pitchers know where to put the pitch..when Bob Gibson wanted to hit a batter...he did it and the batter usually knew it was coming too. All the nonsense of 'showing up' the other team is something that has evolved in recent decades. Its foolish, childish. You play to win. Don't get all twisted up if a batter bunts in a one run game while the pitcher is throwing a no-hitter. You play to win. Don't get ticked if a runner steals a base with his team ahead by 4 or 5 runs. You never know which run you need to win. You play hard. You play to win. If the other team doesn't like it, too bad. 'unwritten rules' are so abused and taken way too seriously in most (not all) cases. Im not an advocate of anyone getting intentionally hit by a 100 mph fastball. But that does seem to be something that has been woven into the fabric of the game. Careers can be ended. Seasons ended. For what? Baseball is a great game...as long as the egos don't overtake it. finally I noticed the average time for a game this year is 2hrs 39 minutes. thats down a TON and thats great. IMO. Also we have a guy who has stolen 60 bases already. Glad to see that element return to the game. Some of the rule changes have actually made the game more enjoyable to watch. Who knew??😶 (just my rambling ramblings!)

blind squirrel still finds a nut once in awhile!😛

nice comeback win to nab the important 1st game of this important series. Pen was nasty. Bats were getting it done. 7 game lead. Good stuff

well I did say 10 runs. We got those so now can the pen make them count. Long ways to go. (Might need 12 or 13!🙄

just a real bad outing for Maeda. Twins will probably need around 10 to win this one. Every game against Cleveland is a close one, no matter what the score. Gotta get this one though. Our pen will be taxed to the max tonite. Maybe we'll see Funderburk

6 games left with Cleveland.... team the Twins have struggled to beat enough times to feel real comfortable. Fortunately(or not?) those 6 games will be played during the next few days...leaving some chunk of time to recover if necessary. I think if they split those 6 games, the Twins will probably win the division.

I think once you get to September, its NOT how you play the game but whether you win or lose. Wins are all that matter now. Don't really care that much how we get them. No extra points for form or style! Ugly wins still count in the standings!

Keuchel was in the pen this afternoon and pitched great. Not impressed at all with Floro. Winder can't go in high leverage situations...especially with Cleveland coming to town. Jax is not pitching well. So some changes in the staff are warranted for sure. Taylor...certainly not as good defensively as Buck would be...but Buck isn't going to be out there and he also isn;t hitting any better than Taylor..so there really isn't a spot for Buck honestly, if all he can do is DH. When AK returns, it may be a risk to see if he can regain his stroke. Gordon and Miranda won't be a factor. I can't see Twins allowing Gallo to play in post season if he is still around (which he probably will be) When 1 of every 2 official AB;s are k's, you are wasting a spot in the lineup with him. Correa is still killing rallies with GIDP's, but he will play everyday somewhere in the lineup. And while the DP's are frustrating, so are the double digit k's just about every game. In spite of it all Twins have a 6 game lead heading into the Cleveland series. They have to not get swept to give us all hope that this team will win the Central this season.

The number of DP's this guy hits into is very disturbing. He is to the DP what GAllo is the K...relatively speaking. Correa kills a lot of rallies. Gallo kills most all of them. Neither is anything to be proud of. (yeah, I know..don't end a sentence with a preposition😉)

Twins ran the bases poorly in extra innings. Gallo with a very messy mistake that took us out of any chance of scoring. Strange strange game. Those 2 strikeouts preceding the walks were some of the lamest AB's I have ever seen. They were swinging at balls 2 feet out of the zone, which Bremer felt was the result of the shadows. I'm convinced Jeffers didn't actually see any of the pitches he swung at.

all I can say is turnabout is fair play! Yesterday our guys couldn't throw strikes and today their guy couldn't. Thats baseball. Its always more fun to win..no matter how you get there.

when you're asked to pitch the 9th in a tie game, your only job is to get the ball over the plate. Don't give the team extra AB's. Make them earn it. Its a managers nightmare when he watches his guy struggle to find the plate. Manager has to pick the right guy for the job but the guy then has to earn his managers trust by at least throwing strikes,

Twins pen a mess tonite. That 9th inning was pretty ugly. Ruined a decent game by handing the Rangers 4 runs.

Jax is a trainwreck. Can't figure out Rocco's thinking about choices of pitchers. But even so, when your guy has to throw strikes and he can't, you deserve what you get. I could see Jax getting a new assignment across the river. He really isn't very good.

I know back a few months ago there was a lot of passioned talk about the Arraez-Lopez trade. And I admit freely I was a critic--with reservations given its a long season. No one expected Arraez to hit ,400, honestly. And we ALL hoped Lopez would eventually turn into the 'ace' we hoped we obtained. So now as August draws to a close, Arraeiz is at .361 and is only .230 over the past 15 games. He has predictably cooled off and is seeking his 'level''...which is still pretty good. He would have to disappear to not win the NL batting title. But more importantly Lopez has constantly gotten better. He is really now our 'ace' in the rotation and he will be a force should Twins hang on to 1st place. This becomes a cautionary tale for us all not to jump to early conclusions when a baseball season is 162 games long. I am very happy that Lopez is excelling because that means good things for the Twins. Still a ways to go but the outlook sure seems positive. We know its wrong to judge a trade too quickly...but as fans, sometimes we can't help ourselves. I will continue to learn from this! I certainly wish Arraez well, but its more important that Lopez is 'our guy'!

its often said, that even in 'blow-outs' you never know which run you will need to win the game. Twins and Winder gave up that garbage run in the 9th on a walk a steal, an error and a sac fly. Hey the way the Twins bats had gone cold, 3 run deficit, 4 run...whats the difference really. But then the comeback and after getting 3 back and a runner on first, it died. I'm not sure why Lewis didn't tag up on that long blast by Wallner. It was deep in the corner at the wall and Lewis needed to get into scoring position to avoid exactly what happened next. Even if the ball landed safely Twins would have two runners on with no outs. That play was key. I'm sure Twins will explain it away but after getting those 3 runs, you need to be aggressive. A lousy way to end the game for sure was that tailor made DP. Jax and Winder had bad days. Jax is in a huge slump and Winder just isn't very good. Twins again fortunate that Cleveland doesn't seem interested in winning the division. But the games against Detroit this season were simply ugly. Next are the most unimpressive Pirates. Wonder how the boys will handle this series.

Injuries are the huge elephant in the dugout for the Twins. Someone key will always be injured for the rest of the season. So flexiblity is important. Kepler v Larnach? Is Larnach as good, or will be ever be as good as the guys playing now. Is he honestly an upgrade from Kepler..at least for the rest of the season? He hasn't impressed me that much this season. An insurance policy...ok. We'll have to see. Polanco will play somewhere...and lets hope he becomes Polanco again. His bat isn't getting it done in this injury plagued season. All the rest of the guys have been discussed pretty thoroughly IMO

anyone think remotely that Kepler would be leading the Twins in HR's in mid August? Not me for sure. Probably more likely to believe Correa would be leading or close to leading MLB in GIDP's. Meanwhile Gallo is striking out now at 50% of official AB's. Thats just not acceptable no matter how it can be spun by the metrics. While the age old argument of 'a k is better than a DP' will rage on like the fires in Canada, Its irrefutable that a k will not accomplish much of anything good. It won't advance runners (unless batter swings at a wild pitch) and it won't give the 'd' a chance to make an error. Since there are a ton more k's than DP's, I'll take my chances with the guy who hits the ball somewhere.

I'm sorry I brought this up..seriously. My head is exploding with all the percentages, stats etc. None of the 'clutch hitter' stuff would have been debated like this before the metrics march to madness arrived on the scene and turned baseball from a game to a study project. (here is where I get blasted to high heaven...old man get with the program!😄) I guess watching the way the Astros handled their AB's intrigued me because nobody else this season was that good at it. Altuve's hit was a bloop...so I wont count that as 'pulled' in the sense that we think of it. The hit to the wall in center was straight up the middle. The HR came after Tucker worked his behind off, fouling I believe 4 straight after an 0-2 count. Perhaps we often exaggerate that 'all' the Twins are swinging for the fences instead of trying to go with a pitch or shorten a swing or even lay one down. But some of the players that were listed as never doing it, do actually do it from time to time don't they? Anyway, if you aren't hitting it over the fence...and you are trying to stay in 1st place, you have to get those runners in from 3rd and 2nd. Probably we aren't that good. Our lineup is flawed. And the guys we were depending on are having poor seasons. All of them. no one is picking the other guy up consistently enough to stay 6 games over .500 when they get there. And even the almighty stats can't always tell the whole story. A guy can go 1-5 a lot...but if that 1 is a 9th inning game winning HR, is anyone complaining. A guy can fail to bring home the runner from 3rd twice in a game, but if he succeeds once and its a game winning RBI who cares about the stats. A guy could hit 3 HR's in a game...but if they are all solo shots in a blowout, either way, how valuable is it? Thats why this game is so great. The human element can confound or elate. And its unpredictable from game to game. If you help your team win, I guess thats all that ultimately matters. Anyway I won't bring up clutch hitting again. its not worth it.

Remember the day when Earl Weaver used to fine guys for not bringing home a runner at 3rd with less than 2 outs! For years there has been debates about 'clutch hitting' and how there really statistically is no such thing. The reality though is that hitting under pressure is difficult. Some can do it and others crumble more often than not. Its not reasonable to assume that you can just plug anyone into a situation where runners are in scoring position and say that given enough chances they will all produce about the same number of RBI. Twins have an entire team of players this year that struggle under the pressure of delivering runners, especially with bases loaded. Do they try too hard? Are they all swinging for the fences? Why do they rack up so many k's? Do they fail to adjust? You don't succeed all the time, but you should get the job done more than they are doing, if you want to win a division, or a playoff series. Was watching how the hated Astros adjusted to the near unhittable Felix Bautista this week. Up to this series he had allowed only 5 earned runs...all season! In two outings they nicked him for 5 runs! They didn't try to do too much. So many of their hits were to the opposite field...rather than trying to pull his nasty stuff. They beat him once, and nearly did it again yesterday. It was frustrating to watch and I keep wondering when Twins hitters will adjust their approach to score runs in games that they clearly could win.

I don't think either guy has any real future with the Twins. They have been up and down a lot and neither one of them can sustain any momentum. Might be off base here, but Twins may need to move on from both. Like Celestino before this season where he has been injured, Twins kept running him out there but he isn't a major league hitter and they need to do better than these guys. (but probably not this season)

getting runners in scoring position with no outs and then striking out with reckless abandon seems to be what the Twins have perfected this season. And everyone is guilty. Even when a guy like Correa starts to heat up, he still has an awful AB to end the game with sacks juiced on Wednesday, with a chance to really be a hero. Kepler and Jeffers fanning at the worst possible times isn't helping either. Getting swept by KC and shortly after losing 3 of 4 to Detroit is not inspiring confidence. But this is a broken record this season.

its tough to watch a can't miss multi-talented athlete be unable to play. Bobby Orr's career was cut so short because of his knees, that couldn't be fixed to allow him to be Bobby Orr. Buxton may be sliding down that same hill. Maybe he's just not fixable. The number and variety of his injuries sure seems to bear that out.