stringer bell

Nice hitting, batting champ! Also shows the wisdom of maybe trying to run Celestino.

Knock it off now.

It is the 4th inning after all.

?????

Uh oh.

Why is Judge in center and Hicks in left? Is Gallo not a left fielder at all?

Again, my like is more like “agree”.

Both New York teams are pretty talented, but they shouldn't be winning at the rate they are. Is it the respective managaers? I dunno, but things do tend to even out in baseball (BTW, at some time the Twins will dominate New York --I hope I'm alive to see it!). I guess I don't understand why the Angels of Anaheim aren't always good and sometimes a champion. A 12-game skid is amazing when your team has both Mike Trout and Ohtani on it. I wonder also whether Maddon will find another job.

That's what I'm seeing too, Chief. I suspect that the choice is playing less than 100% or surgery with a longish recovery. Ever since I saw the item that they drained fluid from his knee, I felt like it was a matter of time before he would be placed on the IL, but I don't think it would be to rest for a week to ten days.

Hard to "like" that comment, but it is true.

I just fed my obsession by playing golf for about the fifteenth day out of sixteen. Well, it wasn't pretty and I left the course pretty frustrated. Before I got home, I had a chance to read the latest on Twins Daily and Major League Trade Rumors. The Twins will face the high-flying Yankees with three red-hot pitchers going for the Evil Empire. The Twins will counter with Cole Sands, Chris Archer and Dylan Bundy. I don't think I've ever seen such a lopsided matchup in favor of the visiting team when both teams are leading their divisions. Ever. As frustrated as I am with my golf game, the Twins continuing use of the Injured List and granting days off for their most dynamic talent provides me and plenty of other Twins fans with continual angst. It is like they are trying to win with one arm behind their back. Let's examine the components of my frustration; Injured List (pitchers)--A key bullpen arm (Alcala) has missed two months with an arm issue. That happens and all teams run into that on occasion. A marginal projected contributor (Dobnak) has missed the entire season so far and isn't close to coming back. Again not unexpected and all teams run into this. Currently, Gray (pectoral), Ryan (COVID) and Ober (groin) are all out. This is where the frustration builds for me. These aren't arm injuries and both of the injuries were borderline enough that the player wasn't disabled immediately. It seems that maximum caution has been used in all three cases. But these three are the top three starters on the team and none of them will face the Yankees this week. Beyond the immediate frustration is the fact that the team has been very conservative in extending the starts of all of their starters, yet here come the injuries. Add the cherry on top of a COVID case for their top young starter that has caused him to miss about three weeks and you start to wonder, what will happen next. One (frustrating) thing we can count on--there will be more short starts when the Injured List guys return to the rotation. Again, it seems that it is a constant, not the exception. Part two--position players. Having players who are breaking out miss time to injury and illness happens, but the Twins seem to have that as a rule. Gilberto Celestino, Kyle Garlick, Trevor Larnach and Royce Lewis all seemed on the way to proving they were valuable major league players and all were detoured to the injured list for a period of time. The Buxton management scheme seems to have accomplished one thing--make Byron Buxton an ordinary ballplayer. We've seen little of the blazing speed (don't "open it up" unless you absolutely have to) and he's no longer even causes anxiety for teams when he's on base. Buxton has only played about half the time in center field and when I last looked, he wasn't even a plus defender this year (that is a big portion of his value). Buck has hit homers at a prolific rate, but he's not getting on base enough and, as mentioned, he is not displaying many of his off the charts tools. Next Carlos Correa. After a slow start, Correa has shown himself to be a premium player, but because of a bad bruise when he was hit by a pitch and a case of COVID, he will have missed over a third of the Twins games to date when he returns. The COVID absence wouldn't have been so bad, but his heir apparent was hurt the day before he was diagnosed, so the Twins have used a career minor leaguer as their shortstop (Palacios has looked like a big leaguer. Good for him!). From what I can tell the Blue Jays have all of their top position players and top starters healthy and playing every day. Same for the Yankees. Since the middle of April, that hasn't been the case with the Twins. Why can't we have nice things? Agree? Give some feedback if you'd like. Go Twins!

I too wonder how much rope the Twins will give for Duffey. He has been Colume-like bad so far this season. The numbers don't lie.

I would love to see Arraez win a batting title and he is the best in baseball at getting on base. He is limited in some ways, but when it comes to OBP, he has no peer.

Oh yeah. Jeffers is in a terrible funk. Send him down to tune up for a week or two and give Sanchez full-time duty (for a catcher)? I'm still a believer in Jeffers, but he seems to have lost all confidence at this time.

I expect there will be a lot of movement both to and from the Injured List. For example, Garlick hasn't played in a couple of days and is nursing a leg issue. I expect that if he can't go by Tuesdays, he'll be on the IL. There are "free moves" to be made for restoring people from the restricted and COVID-19 lists. Cotton, Hamilton and Palacios would most likely be moved. I think the impression Cotton has left will help him find his way back fairly soon. It would seem Winder, Ryan and Gray will be back within ten days. I would rate the starters in this order: 1) Gray 2) Ryan 3) Ober 4) Smeltzer 5) Archer 6) Winder and 7) Bundy. Of course, getting all of these healthy has been the case for what, ten days? Winder could go to St. Paul and wait for an opportunity to start and if he's down for a couple weeks, would also save a year of service time. In the bullpen, Cano could be optioned, I believe Megill also could be optioned (not sure). I wonder how much rope Duffey has remaining. He has had some good outings, but he's been bad far too often. There will be movement in the roster. To clear a 40-man spot at some point, the Twins probably could DFA Contreras. Celestino and Gordon are decent backup OFs and both did well north of the border. Meanwhile, there are players in St. Paul making noise. Alex Kirilloff hit two homers today, Spencer Speer hit three! Tim Beckham has hit the ground running and hitting. A couple of catchers are hitting better than Godoy. It might happen that Godoy is designated and the Twins add one of their other St. Paul catchers when that is needed. Strotman also could be designated.

I thought it was the right call to take Smeltzer out especially after the fourth inning where he allowed only one run thanks to a nice defensive play by Larnach to hold Springer to a single, a nice GDP, then a homer and another hit. My only gripe was that I thought that either Cotton or Jax might have gone two innings. I agree with 2Twins87 about Duran’s usage. He has done two innings frequently and having someone capable of dominating two of the late innings is huge. The looming off day and return of a couple or three bullpen arms also figured into the pitching decisions. There are a number of players making statements about being big leaguers—-Cotton, Moran, Jax, Miranda, Celestino, Larnach, Palacios and Gordon.

This is going to be more nerve wracking than it should be.

Not to be preachy, but I think you mean “regressed”. I think Smith has regressed to the mean, for sure.

He did give up three hits in the fourth, including a long homer.

There will be injuries to open up roster spots and players will slump. That is baseball in the 2020s.

They have their best bullpen options available and an off-day tomorrow. I’m not opposed to the move.

With all of their RH power, I wouldn’t think Smeltzer should have a long leash today.

He’s been good in the outfield, but I’m wondering how long he is going to struggle with the Ks.

Buxton has never been an All-Star.

Smeltzer has held Toronto to one run through three innings. Color me happily surprised.