tony&rodney

Nothing wrong with the waiver process. The Angels made a move that was an aberration. The gnashing of teeth will only harm your sleep. The Twins have more than enough talent to win their division. Play ball or go home is September baseball. Does anyone remember the Phillies falling apart down the stretch or the heartbreaking final weekend in Boston in 1967?

The Twins need to play good baseball in September. Despite all ridicule of the AL Central, the baseball season is long and any team on top of the standings in their division at the end of the regular season should revel in the accomplishment. There are 28 games remaining and Cleveland will have the edge on a tie in the standings unless the Twins sweep in Cleveland. There are no playoff games to break a divisional or wild card tie. Head to head is first determination. Cleveland will need to go 19-9 to tie if the Twins go 14-14. The Twins have a more favorable schedule. Whomever wins the AL Central deserves it. Anything can happen, but it would be cause for a drastic change in management if this rendition of the Twins implodes and does not win the AL Central title outright.

Baseball is a confounding sport at times. Texas is a far better team than Cleveland. The Twins took three out of four from the Rangers but dropped two of the three versus the Guardians. It happens. The Twins looked more focused and had better at bats against Texas and their relief pitchers had better luck too. Minnesota is in a good position here, both with the lead and a favorable schedule in September. We shall see how determined and focused on winning the Twins are in the next month. I'm guessing a 16-12 record closes out the regular season for Minnesota, leaving the team with 85 wins. This was the near consensus prediction before the season started and would represent a solid overall campaign.

Looking at the standings we see both Baltimore and Los Angeles with 83 wins before September, a number that should allow the Twins to win the AL Central. Atlanta already has 87 victories and the Twins need to go 18-10 to reach that total. Our friends, the Tampa Bay Rays, could be a real influence for the Twins by sweeping Cleveland and rolling over when they visit Target Field.

No. Sadly, Floro is better at this point in time.

No surprise the Twins did not win a claim. The loss to Cleveland opened a window and now the calendar turns to September. If the Twins can go 14-14 to finish 83-79, Cleveland needs to go 19-9 to finish 83-79. In that event Cleveland wins the AL Central with a better record head to head (unless Twins sweep in Cleveland). The Twins have not managed to rise very far above .500 all season but they should be in good enough position with health and personnel to avoid a collapse. Buxton looked ok last night, but Kirilloff looked rusty. AK did have one good swing to plate a run with a line drive single. Austin Martin looks pretty comfortable playing baseball right now. He would be a worthwhile addition for September. The Twins will need to shuffle some relievers around to find a hot hand or two and especially to give Duran and Jax a break. The big question is how long the Twins roll with Luplow and Gallo. Ignoring the statistics all year and focusing on the last week or two, it seems odd to carry players who are struggling to hit foul balls much less move a runner over. Both look very uncomfortable and overwhelmed by MLB pitching right now. I guess we will all find out tomorrow how the Twins plan to finish their schedule.

Jax

Good game thus far.

I have never umpired above American Legion baseball. I also only did the gig for about four years. I enjoyed it and was pretty good at it. Some of those teenage kids throw fairly hard but don't begin to have the movement and stuff of an MLB pitcher. So I have no idea what it is like to umpire professionals. An umpire sets the parameters of the strike zone and then makes a call based on where they see the ball in relationship to the zone. The catcher's mitt and movement are extraneous. A catcher can miss a ball right down the middle which is called a strike and never move their glove and the pitch is called a ball because the catcher set up outside of the zone. This often draws a "Blue, where was that pitch?" comment. Teenage catchers were remarkable honest about calls and seldom did anyone question a reasonable call. I have always wondered how someone focused on the ball can see a mitt which is below and in front of the catcher, who is in front of the umpire. I could not focus on where the catcher caught the ball and the moving of the glove seemed silly because the call decision has already been made. The analytics make claims on framing which seems somewhat dubious but not worth arguing about either way. I will not dispute that there are numbers collected. Any umpire who has any pride at all in their performance has a system to remind them to ignore comments and actions from others. Of course the umpire is also human. This is just my opinion and others may see the whole deal with umpires differently. I think spending the time making calls had some influence in my playing and coaching views toward umpires, although I do get irritated by blatantly poor calls or professional umpires who lose their composure.

I don't believe there is any good that comes from conspiracy theories as the last half decade has proven. Baseball just needs to make a decision on electronics. Yes, use the ABS sysstem or at least a challenge call along with the current other challenges. No, drop all electronics and challenges. Just make a decision. It isn't like there is a block on future tweaks as well.

Two good wins versus Texas. For those who wonder about why the Twins lost games to Detroit or Kansas City, note that both teams have managed to irritate a number of other good teams as well. 90 wins is more than expected for most teams which means 72 losses. MLB is a very competitive league and wins are always pretty tough to pile up. The 12-2 last night was a little unusual. It will be very interesting to see how Joe Ryan returns tonight versus the Texas bats as well as it will be fun to see how the Twins fare against a guy who always pitches with a chip on his shoulder, Max Scherzer.

Gallo was hot at the previous call and that the umpire was chirping at him. Gallo was also yapping. I do believe that batters need a more effective two strike swing approach that protects against very close borderline pitches. However, at no point should that include swinging at pitches well out of the strike zone. Julien has been a victim of numerous egregious strike three calls and we saw how badly he misses on a pitch way outside last night. He needs to stick with his strike zone to remain in baseball.

Lots of runners left on base so far. Sure hope the pitching holds up.

The problem is one of accountability. Folks have stated that we just don't know what consequences umpires face. That is correct on a minor level but we do know that umpires have not been fired or dismissed due to incompetence or suspended for on field behavior. Meanwhile, players are cut, demoted, or dfa'd every day. I think consistency is all the players ask for. Gallo is fighting for his job and the umpire is yapping back between pitches. Tough spot for Joey. There was an article today and several recent articles about the ABS system. It favors the hitters because it is very consistent. Some don't like for a number of reasons but as long as we have replay and challenges that are certainly imperfect, there is zero reason not to implement ABS. FWIW (nothing), I was previously opposed to all electronic decisions. Change happens.

Wallner is fast.

If you are watching the game, know the strike zone, and watch the pitches you can call balls and strikes reasonably well from your couch. Batters rarely worry about the strike zone because they generally are quick to adapt to how an umpire is calling a game. If you look at how the pitches are recorded (plotted) versus what you see, there is a real difference on many occasions. Generally, the plotted pitches are shown as close to strikes if they were called strikes. Not very useful for specifics. A box score doesn't differentiate between a line drive and and a routine slow ground ball that the official scorer rules a hit. In any event, MLB needs the ABS system. I'm starting to enjoy AAA milb games more and more because of that consistency.

The umpire has not called a single pitch that low (Wallner) or that far outside (Julien) a strike the entire game. It was clearly not expected by anyone.

I do believe there is a time and place for a manager to give an umpire an earful and take the expected ejection. I have no idea what Baldelli thinks about that. He has two rookies who both have extremely strong control of the strike zone. They actually may be the best on the team . They also were called out on pitches nowhere near the strike zone. The umpire has not called those on any other batter.

Wow, just Wow. That looked intentional on the umpires' part.

I can agree that Wallner should protect on close pitches but it is insane to swing at pitches well out of the strike zone.

It sure looks a lot like the old time rookie treatment. Their strike out rates were down in AAA because of the ABS/challenge system in place. It wasn't due to the clearly superior pitching at the MLB level. Baseball needs to go to an ABS system next season. I never thought I would agree with that but it is clear that it is needed.

Same old strike outs and failure to move runners. Fundamental baseball is not high on Falvey's checklist.

The optics are pretty unusual. Buxton can still run but apparently pays a high price every time he runs and was not considered at any point this season to be fit enough physically to play in the field despite the open acknowledgment that being a DH was very difficult for Byron and likely affected him. It is what it is. I'm wondering if Buxton is at a point in his life where he is concerned with his ability to walk without pain and where he decides that the debilitating pain and the potential further damage to his mobility has reached the critical stage. I would not be at all surprised if he is facing retirement.

Good topic for the postseason. Expect trades (possibly one or more of your favorite guys) and a reduced payroll.

John Prine - " stop wishing for bad luck and knocking on wood ..." The game has changed from 2017 to 2023. Baldelli isn't Molitor. The 2023 Twins have a much higher budget and payroll than the 2017 squad. The general consensus is that a strike out is an out, big deal. So there are annoying features of baseball today. Whatever, the pitcher-batter chess match is still compelling for me. There has been some fun Twins baseball to watch this season. Julien found a way to get the runs across today. Pablo Lopez has been terrific. Max Kepler is on a mini resurgence at the plate. Carlos Correa struggles at the plate and still manages to make every play in the field. The Twins were picked to be a .500 team more or less and are hanging above .500 right now. The next fifteen games should be interesting. A record of 8-7 would be fine and a 9-6 stretch would pretty much push the Twins into the postseason. Too many strike outs all year but a 2-0 win and a lead in the division is worth something.