stringer bell

Finally a real explanation for Pelfrey's decreased velocity. I am one of the few who has some hope for Big Pelf. Something wasn't right and shoulder issues explain his problems.

The curse of being Deduno's personal catcher. Pinto starts tomorrow. Should he be DHing tonight? I think so, but those opportunites are going to be less with corner OFs Arcia and Willingham back. I hope Pinto catches for Nolasco and perhaps the rotation can be Pinto with Nolasco and Deduno and Suzuki catching the other three, with a DH assignment once or twice a week.

I'll take jokin's scenario one step futher--Hicks get sent down and Presley stays. Hicks gets a month or two of development time and comes to Minnesota as "new and improved" and immediately hits. It might have happened, instead we have a cluster of events which end up with Danny Santana being the alternate to a RH hitting only Aaron Hicks, still hitting below the Mendoza line.

I watched the highlights and it was fun to watch Arcia and Nuñez. They showed a lot of fire out there. Nuñez has had a couple of big late game hits already. He isn't a great player, but he has something to offer.

Arcia with a homer and a long double. I credit stringer bell, whoever he is.

I imagine the Rangers are not too pleased with the non-call at third base.

Adjustments? First pitch swing and pulled.

Had to laugh at mlb gameday. The pitch by pitch said that Hughes was throwing a knuckle curve.

Arcia steps up.

Now I don't want it to rain. Is this Parm's first start in left field? I expected a barrage of "Free Pinto", but the starter change for the Rangers has gotten all the attention. I would like to see the offense get going. Perhaps ex-Twin Scott Baker will be the elixir they need (I'm think Baker carries a no-hitter until the 6th BTW).

Look, here's the OP now! I guess maybe sometimes my command of the language suffers for trying to get interest in a post. As Physics Guy surmises, I wasn't calling Arcia out. I was offering my two-bit analysis of the immediate and longer-term future. The club needs a couple of corner guys to hit like big league corner guys and it would be best long-term if it were guys in their future plans--Mauer and Arcia--it also would be great if the Twins had another guy who they could write in every day and I think Arcia is up to it. I hold no illusions about 2014. Even if the starting pitching improves to average, this club has a lot of holes and it would be a huge surprise if they were in contention. Having another player go from "prospect" or "projected starter" to "established player" would be huge for the future of the team. Obviously, Dozier has taken that step. Plouffe is moving in that direction and to add Arcia would make the future from 2015 that much rosier.

Here's my 13 position players for Memorial Day 2015: Catcher--Suzuki and Pinto Infield--Mauer, Dozier, Escobar, Sano, Nuñez Outfield--Plouffe, Buxton, Arcia, Fuld, Parmelee DH--Vargas.

The Twins find themselves a couple games below .500 after the Memorial Day games. We have seen the team play well for a couple of weeks followed by a four-game losing streak which looks right now like a swoon that might be pretty severe. Currently, among the good news has been the fine play of Brian Dozier, the improved overall play of Trevor Plouffe, and the good work, both hitting and defensively, of Kurt Suzuki. Three right handed hitters who can and should be penciled in to be fixtures throughout the near future. Offensive production and defense from the outfield has been lacking. Kubel started strong in left but has faded badly, Chris Colabello has the most starts in right field. He's not an outfielder and it showed and his hitting went from Hall-of-Fame to Florimon in about as much time as it took to write this sentence. Aaron Hicks has been a mess and has become Topic A at TD, not because of success. For the Twins to remain competitive, someone who hasn't produced must step up. Given that the "successes" have been right handed hitters, it would be helpful if a left handed hitter came forward. One candidate, of course, is Joe Mauer. The converted first baseman hasn't hit for extra-base pop and remains on course to shatter his career high for strike outs. If Mauer is healthy, his numbers should improve. He has been too good a hitter for too long to OPS more than a hundred points below his career average. Another candidate would be the topic of this thread--Oswaldo Arcia. Arcia has middle of the order power, much needed by a Twins team lagging in the bottom quarter of home run and slugging stats. He has also shown glimpses of being much more than an occasional long ball hitter. He was destroying AAA when his wrist got healthy, much as he did last year. His left handed bat is probably needed to counterbalance the right handers on the club. I was a live spectator at the Memorial Day game. Arcia looks dangerous swinging the bat and he actually looked good in the outfield, although he didn't catch one ball for which he made a nice attempt. The idea that he could be in the lineup every day with 20+ homer power and a good batting average really would improve the Twins offense. It would also add stability to have another position locked up, not only for this year, but years to come. Arcia still is the youngest player on the team. His development this year is essential to the Twins being competitive this year, but more than that, he is a key piece in the puzzle if the Twins are to become a consistently contending team in the last half of this decade.

I have been on the Brian Dozier bandwagon for a while now. He adapted to a new position seamlessly last year, added power to a position that has never produced much and seems to have a real feel for the game. It seemed to me that with his early power/speed success that it was logical that Dozier would represent the Twins at Target Field for the All-Star game this year. After looking at numbers after yesterday's game I'm not so sure. All of a sudden, second basemen are banging the ball all over the American League. In the Top Ten for hitting are Robinson Cano, Ian Kinsler, and Jose Altuve and all of these guys have superior OPS numbers to Dozier at this point. Add in that Dozier won't get the fan vote and that perennial All-Star Dustin Pedroia is healthy and I doubt that Dozier deserves an All-Star nod, despite being the Twins' most complete, and perhaps best, player. Dozier's high walk rate has dropped dramatically and his batting average has dipped below .250 after a nice surge. So, who goes? I guess the easy answer is to give Glen Perkins another All-Star slot. He is among the league leaders in saves, strikes out more than a batter an inning and he was there last year, although he didn't get to pitch. Perkins overall numbers are satisfactory, no more than that. He's blown a couple saves and has been shaky in a handful of others. If the AL manager goes with 4-6 closers, I suppose Perk makes the cut. If he goes with fewer, I think there are better options. Another candidate would be Phil Hughes, who may become pitcher of the month for May. Hughes is 5-1 with a low 3 ERA and all the numbers are trending in the right direction. If this were to continue for another month, the Yankee retread would be both a great story and a fitting candidate to make the AL staff, but a bad outing or two between now and then would knock Hughes out. Finally, there is Kurt Suzuki. Signed late as a free agent, Suzuki has done well handling the staff and is currently hitting close to .300. Not many catchers are having good years, so perhaps Suzuki could slip in as a backup to whoever wins the catcher voting. My fear is that when selection time comes, that the Twins won't have a deserving All-Star. It has happened before (Dave Engle, Ron Coomer and Michael Cuddyer), but it would be a black eye for the host team. Ah well. The team seems to invite black eyes these days.

Good article Nick. I have been in the camp saying that it would be folly to give up the platoon advantage, but if the young man is so overwhelmed trying to groove two swings, maybe going only with his "strong" side will work out. The article gives a proper perspective how steep the odds are that this move will be a success. It seems like there isn't much to lose by giving it a shot.

Must have been a "senior moment".

Well, not to defend every choice Gardenhire makes but given that there weren't any other real choices, what is the manager to do? Escobar has had a really good run hitting and he is a competent fielder, he should be the regular at shortstop whether he has a long leash is another question. There are no real backups for a guy hitting under .200, so Santana has gotten two starts in center field. I don't think the three weeks Santana has spent in the majors will ruin his development. Unfortunately, the manager's options were really limited.

After sitting through a loss at the hands of the Rangers, I saw more wrong than right about the Twins. That is to be expected since they lost. Some things that hit me: 1) For one reason or another, it doesn't seem very often that Twins runners score from first on a double. Of course, that happened twice for the Rangers. 2) I thought the Twins had the third base dugout. Did they ever? 3) Correia didn't pitch that poorly. 7 IP 7 H 0 BB 5 K. If he could have made a good throw to first in the second inning, his line would have been pretty good. 4) A lot of guys are scuffling--Dozier, Mauer, Kubel, Parmelee. The only two guys who seem to be going good--Escobar and Suzuki. 4) I thought Texas' lineup was top-heavy. If Twins' pitchers handled the top five, they could cut through the bottom four--not so. The bottom hurt the Twins a lot, especially Gimenez, who I always thought of as a Chris Herrmann type. 5) Plouffe must lead the league in air outs. He hit a high fly ball over the center field fence and three mile-high popups.

Just a little too much air under that one.

KC for 7?

Didn't think the play was that close.

This is our inning!

Looked to me like Hicks just froze.

He still has to run with both feet.h

I am skeptical about Hicks' decision. He can start proving me wrong now. That's a start.