ashbury

Older son Bashbury in attendance at tonight's game. Younger son Cashbury would be except Amtrak from NYC let him down and he's stuck in Philly; no game there tonight unfortunately.

Chief, what became of the Barcalounger you used to call home?

Little things that don't show up in the box score, like loitering around in the line of sight between Vazquez and Correa on a crucial throw late in the game, need to be cleaned up for sure. Run him in for vagrancy, at least! 😀

I must have missed mention of it, but I see that our catcher Jair Camargo is on the injured list with a forearm strain as of May 2. He'd be eligible to return to active duty in St Paul by now, but hasn't played. Anyone know the status? Is this a precursor symptom to Tommy John Surgery?

Every team does and that puts them out of the Twins' price range.

"Incapable of putting up a fight" does indeed seem like the best summary.

I changed the illustration out from under you. Sorry. Things here move too fast for me, I'll change it back.

Oof. You have high expectations at AA for someone who doesn't turn 22 until August. Yes, pedestrian if it were some 26-year old still trying to make it past AA.

Looks like my edit ninja'd your boast, as it showed up in your reply. 😀

I realize this is circular logic, and would require some heavy-duty research and database skills that I lack, but even good starters have outings where they go to the mound and discover they have nothing that day. That would be the simple explanation for Bailey Ober's game log this season, for example - Kansas City (who clobbered him) has a similar up-and-down profile as our Twins. One of the skills in data analysis is how to deal with outliers - amateurs simply discard them, pros figure out a framework for the particular data. (I consider myself somewhere in the middle on that, LOL.) I'll stand by my perception of how our team's approach to batting fares from one day to the next. Not every team is like that - the Phillies so far this year have been really tough to shut down, so they seem to have a Plan B for pitchers who are making their pitches.

Good luck with the site issues. Buxton up, Martin down (ninja'd by Squirrel). I would say Hallelujah, not being a big Austin Martin believer as yet, EXCEPT, I believe it's the case that Buxton failed to get a base hit during his short stint at AAA. All is not yet well, I fear.

It's not ideal that Duran gave up the run, but not even the most dominant reliever carries an ERA of 0.00 through an entire season. Bottom line, the pitching and defense held the other team to 3 runs; so an offense with aspirations toward making some noise in the post-season ought to win such a game, way more often than not. Don't blame a "bullpen leak", don't blame the umpires. Don't blame SWR's slightly short but very good outing, nor Steven Okert; between the two of them, they achieved 2 runs in 6 innings, otherwise a Quality Start except it took two of the to do it, which is then turned over to the bullpen in normal circumstances. Blame the offense. Except for that blip during the winning streak against weaker overall opposition, they've been the problem this season. Every team tries to whomp mistake pitches, and every team tends to feast on a starter or a member of a bullpen who is having a bad day. But the good teams are able to switch gears and find-a-way against the typically good major league pitcher having a typically good outing.

That's a Stro Man Argument.

I started to reply, but decided to post a separate thread instead of doing a possible threadjack here. https://twinsdaily.com/forums/topic/67054-rate-the-outfielders/ Spoiler alert: I come to the same conclusion you do. Laboriously. 😀

"Line them up and choose for yourself. " TD poster tony&rodney posed this thought in the discussion on Austin Martin (concerning who else on the roster is a worse defensive outfielder). I have thoughts on that - don't we all? I doubt we'll reach full and complete consensus, but maybe some useful insights will develop. Being the kind who likes to break down questions, I thought of 5 general attributes I want in a center fielder. It helps to define your terms, especially when each term is fuzzy at best. Range. Not quite equivalent to foot-speed in all aspects of the game but close. Getting a quick start overlaps with routes. Routes. Often range and routes are lumped together, because a lousy route reduces the range. I still feel like it's something that can be split into parts. Arm. Unlike the above two, I lump together arm strength and arm accuracy, because, although arms are important in CF, they're still secondary to other skills. At the Wall. Maybe there's a better term, but by this I mean long, difficult flies. Who do I trust to gather it in? Range is great, but you have to close the deal. Judgment. Some of that overlaps with At the Wall, but I also mean knowing when to dive and when to play safe. Texas leaguers. Also, general game smarts. Throwing to the wrong base goes here, not under "arm." I use a 1-5 rating scale, 5 high. Conceptually '3' is major league average. However, that would be for a corner outfielder, as 3's across the board might be someone's average left fielder, while the grading curve is steeper for center field, and all 3's would likely be a defensive liability. For whatever that's worth. Just to set a common frame of discussion. I list the 8 outfielders, not just CF, who have played this season. (They're pretty much played everywhere - 4 in CF, 5 in RF, 6 in LF.) I also include Michael A Taylor, because I really enjoyed his defense last season, and between him and Byron Buxton they set the recent gold standard for Twins CF play that others need to aspire to I'm sure there will be dissent. What do you see as the worst over-ratings or under-ratings, in the table below? I'll confess that Martin's my whipping-boy, and I hate his arm, and his judgment coming in, and his technique on difficult long flies. I also give Margot maybe more credit than he deserves, or has shown me, because he did have this reputation for quality. Maybe he lost it all. The bottom line, for me, is that the discussion about CF backup behind Buxton is complex only because all the options are lousy. You don't actually need these numbers or this breakdown to come to that conclusion. But I am me, and always will be. 😀 Buxton MAT Kepler Willi Martin Margot Kirill Larn Wallner 5 5 4 3 4 3 2 1 1 Range 5 5 5 3 2 3 2 2 2 Routes 4 4 4 2 1 2 3 2 4 Arm 4 5 5 3 1 3 2 2 2 At the Wall 5 4 5 3 2 2 2 2 2 Judgment

Still waiting for it.

Martin just needs to learn a few things. How to throw, how to hit with power, how to make good decisions on defense, how to feast on left-handed pitching. A couple of weeks in St Paul to smooth off some rough edges should have him good to go!

They should ask around.

Excellent clarification.

baseball-reference.com's StatHead tool confirms. Hrbek reached 23 games, BTW.

The Twins: Great bullpen? Or, GREATEST bullpen?