umterp23

T&R - I think Lee could be outside looking in if and when Correa/Buxton return. What might get interesting is making the playoffs, your 1st round roster will only need 3 starting pitchers but do you keep a 4th to piggy back let's say a SWR who may go 4-5 innings and then you throw a Zebby or Festa piggyback to reduce the quality of bullpen. Let's say we do, we could add a bench guy for defense/pinch run that has some speed late might a Kiersey get a look in September to see if he fits the bill? Thanks for following along on the Road and commenting!

Final 36 Games Road to Playoffs 8/22 Update: TWINS Win, 1-0. Guardians Lost 0-1 (Twins -2.5 back) 8/23 Update: TWINS off day, 1-0. Guardians Lost 0-2 (Twins -2 back) chpettit - didn't look at is close enough for final series, but could work in Twins favor as well. O's starting pitching has a serious injury bug and Yankees could be in front by decent margin, so O's could be fighting Red Sox for a playoff spot. Looking forward to September baseball, especially if Twins close out August on a really good run of W's

Good morning all, not a blog contributor by any means, but I did put one together yesterday in case anyone wants to follow along on Road to Playoffs. Go Twins

Alphabetical order when record is the same, pretty lazy on MLB website

Final 36 Games Road to Playoffs 8/22 Update: TWINS Win, 1-0. Guardians Lost 0-1 (Twins -2.5 back)

We could debate almost all the positions both on the field in the batting order. Catcher is kind of intriguing as I point out the following question as I don't have a great answer - If you were to say for our catcher position from offensive side of things we wanted the following: .230 avg, .365 slg and .627 ops high teens for HR's, about 50 rbi's or so, kind of middle of pack on offense, would we not be jumping for joy? Vazquez has had about 1 month of games to get improve his numbers to what I listed minus the Homers and RBI's Jeffers had a tough stretch in June/July but I give him a pass for one thing only that I hope none of us would have to go through or have gone through. We don't know what he has or is going through with the unexpected still born death of what would have been a son that if his wife had gone to full pregnancy would have been born in this month window. I will always tip my hat to him and his family for battling a baseball and balancing life and it's curveballs. August he has seem to be able to hit better but not the hot start he had in April/May. Glad we have a problem of who helps us win come playoffs, either one should make us happy that we have a tandem.

back to back lineup graphics showcasing the catchers ... has to be a rarity for Twins marketing team

Comments over the last few days to get to the playoffs have been, Twins may need to go 21-15 over final 36. Let's dive into our road vs Cleveland. TWINS: AWAY Padres (1) - HOME Cardinals (3), Braves (3), Blue Jays (3) - AWAY Rays (4), Royals (3), HOME - Angels (3), Reds (3), - AWAY Guardians (4) Red Sox (3) - HOME Marlins (3) & Orioles (3) ... 21 Home Games and 15 Away games GUARDIANS: AWAY Yankees (2) - HOME Rangers (3), Royals (4), Pirates (3) - AWAY Royals (3), Dodgers (3), White Sox (3) - HOME Rays (4) Twins (4), AWAY Cards (3), Reds (2) - HOME Astros (3) ... 21 Home Games and 16 Away games So stretch run could be very exciting or a debbie downer quickly depending on how we close out August. Equal amount of home vs away games but the big 4 AWAY are at the Guards. Would have been nice to get them at HOME where maybe the crowd could give the team some extra juice. According to Tankathon website - the remaining strength of schedule is: TWINS have 10 hardest and GUARDIANS 11 hardest Basically even from hear on out on paper, but playing Guards at their place may be the difference in winning division or just getting into playoffs. KC has the toughest road with 4 division leaders left on schedule, Guards have 4 division leaders left and Twins just 2. 24 games before the Guardian series, if Twins can go 16-6 or better, then game on to win division. Go Twins

Back to back tough losses in very winnable games. Rocco is Rocco, so won't pile on but 3 things that shoulda, coulda, woulda not grasped defeat from the jaws of victory. 1. Martin thinking he was going to score on bad/no one covering 3rd base frantic moment 2. Miranda with bases loaded had one job to do get ball out of the infield even if it meant sac fly. Some will argue the very bad 1st pitch called strike changes the type of at bat needed, but I will argue it was one pitch and only the first pitch. 3. Why oh why would Jax who threw only 10 pitches (9 strikes) not come out to start the next inning? Tight ball game and you need to lock down the 2 run lead at least for momentum sakes. Other than that the guys battled, came back and then implosion by some guy(s) in the pen which is unfortunate. Salvage the road trip today and then go on a much needed home stand run to put pressure on the Indians, pains me to say Guardians Go Twins

Another love fest article to justify $10MM per year for the guy. Great clubhouse guy (which makes me laugh), calls a good game but isn't his fault when pitches get pounded (what pitcher on record will ever say a catcher doesn't call a good game). So, a .230 guy with below avg OPS, Slugging, etc with 1/3 of the HR, RBI's compared to Jeffers, etc is a god send and Jeffers is bag of poo makes me laugh. Glad Vazquez has finally woken up this year to give our catcher position 2 solid guys.

Over under on Lewis swinging at 1st pitch hell or high water. Seems like out of his last 15-20 AB's he is about 90%. Some awful swings on sliders/curves out of the zone. 4 AB's - 2.5x's per the infamous betting lines instead of straight up number.

Starting 9 vs our Starting 9 most likely favors the Royals for this 3 game set as they will play the same guys most likely every day. Tonight's KC's 2, 3 & 4 (Witt Jr. 87, Pasquantino 84 and Perez 78) hitters combined have 249 RBI's. Our total 9 guys have 325 with Jeffers only one in the 50's with 53. Witt leads them in 14 of 16 hitting categories with SB's and K's being the two he doesn't. Impressive year he is having. The scheduling gods were in favor of Royals with a 2-game set vs Cardinals Friday/Saturday, so they got another rest day yesterday. Twins have to find a way to win 2 out of 3

While Jeffers has struggled, I will give this guy a pass. No one knows how he feels or is feeling except Jeffers, his wife and and family. This month of July is probably very difficult for him as they were expected to give birth to their 2nd child. Can't imagine having to give birth in March to a still born way ahead of schedule. Yes they say time heals all wounds but to play at a high level day in and day out and dealing with a tragedy at this magnitude .... Well I tip my hat to him and wish him nothing but success.

so small ball does work!

Duran maybe threw one fastball for a strike in the outing and he appeared to shake off Jeffers multiple times to go with an 80's curveball. When you can't locate the heat, you have a poor outing. SWR looked really good, kind of surprised he didn't get the 7th to see what would happen.

So going to be tough is comment vibe for tonight's game. Let's look at 24 hours ago: Suarez going in to game 10W - 4L , ERA 2.76 , 112 K's END RESULT was a WIN for Twins Wheeler going in to game 10W - 4L. ERA 2.70, 126K's END RESULT TBD Wheeler now will face a stronger Lefty Batting lineup tonight with the proverbial Right hand bench on deck when we get to Lefty bullpen. I like my chances just as much as last night vs the best record in baseball. SWR can hold them to 3 runs or so and lets roll the dice. Go TWINS

Not knowing but proving we both thought the same thing when he didn't attempt to square up and try to bunt on 2nd pitch. I haven't been a Margot hater as others might be, he did get key hit with runners in scoring position already. Little things at times for putting pressure in the defense to get you out is irritating. Good win, keep the wins coming

so he fits right in for the dreaded 3rd time through the lineup mantra. Paddack on innings watch rest of the year, so need a body or two help alleviate a straight bullpen game

Small ball is just as important as putting the ball in the seats. 2 cases in point: Extra inning loss to Brewers with man on 2nd to start the inning, Castro wanted to be the hero swings at low first pitch strike and lazily flies out to CF. I don't care if defense is going to pinch the corners which they they weren't at the time of 1st pitch. Job is to move the runner to 3rd, didn't happen. Margot last night half hearted attempt at 1st pitch bunt and didn't even come close to getting on ground in play. Swings with all his might to and K's on pitches out of the zone. He had no intentions of moving the guy over. Small ball means putting pressure on the defense to execute for outs and Twins don't do it enough or one could say at all. Bunting doesn't always mean for base hits. Hell Brewers bunted multiple times and Twins didn't execute on defense well enough.

lefty innings eater wouldn't be a bad move. A contending team will bite

There were positives and negatives in his two starts. He got exposure with the big club and gave us 2 starts where we went 1-1 in those games, so not a bad day. He had one bad inning in one the starts where some plays could have been made in support, so his ERA took a blow. If he learns from the mistakes and capitalizes on the positives, works hard, we will see him again.

How many good club house guys do you need that aren't pulling their weight on the field? I like Farmer, but he hasn't done a lick to stay on the team. I heard at least 1/2 dozen good club house guys mentioned this year, sounds like too many cooks in the kitchen or just another reason to hold onto a good guy. $6MM for good club house guy is not money well spent

Nice recognition to be selected and the way the system is flawed, getting in on fan vote sinks the Twins today. Regardless of market size, fans dictating starters for the the team is quite laughable. So, bottom line the only plus to being named an All-Star is the bonus $ in your contract clause. Get some rest, heal up and smoke the division in the 2nd half like last year. Being a 2nd or 3rd seed so much better than 5th or 6th and potentially facing a Yank or Oriole in round one on the road

All good points and I'll add on to the conversation. Kids growing up playing baseball all the way through college still run into the same problem today. Not many lefties on the mound at all levels of baseball. Righties from a stat a couple years ago were 80% at MLB level, College roughly the same and almost 90% at the youth levels prior to college. So Righty vs Righty is way more common to hone your skills growing up and now it is not much of a concern as you did it your whole life. Lee and Castro as switch hitters can cover any change in pitchers during any point in the game. Sometimes you have to let lefty bats stay in the game vs Lefty pitching, especially middle innings of a game. I like the position the Twins are in with a tough decision having to be made when all are healthy. Farmer would be the odd man out as I wouldn't be sending Lee down when Lewis is back healthy which still may be a month or so. Lee will have his moments of failure, players all do but his mental prep based on playing for a coaching dad makes me believe it will a small bump in his career vs a sink hole that Farmer is in. Great 2 wins, shame Friday night slugfest didn't go our way

Welcome to the show Brooks Lee!