SwainZag

I would say the young core of the team who are all 26 years old or younger all came from the vaunted farm system. Sano, Buxton, Kepler, Polanco, Berrios and Arraez are fit into that mold. Before the season the majority of the high pieces on the farm were AA or lower including the entire Top 10 not named Rooker, who is injured. The Yankees are a weird comparison because the only guys that are 26 or under and really helping the club are Torres, Sanchez and German. So where's all this vaunted Yankee farm club helping out at?

I will not look at anything as a collapse until they at least have a losing month or at least a losing stretch. 5/6 right now is by far their worst stretch of the season. Our friends the Indians have won 38 of their last 52 games. That's a pace to win 118 games. It's taken nearly a third of the season of a team playing on par with historic pace just to over take the Twins by a 1/2 game. If the Twins finish with their current winning % and have 98 wins and don't win the division is it really a collapse?

Starting to?

Wooo!!!

For his major league career lefties are hitting .132/.268/.235 against him. The problem is control, especially to right handed hitters. He would have a niche if a team had room to carry a guy who would face a tough lefty or two.

O'Rourke has always been tough on lefties. A good addition to Rochester and a possible September call up if Rocco would use him correctly.

Bombas early and often, please.

The dreaded Windows Update when I was out making me a sandwich. What timing.

I had a nice big, long game thread I worked on all morning with videos and graphs.......and it's gone. So I am going to make this as long as possible before I have to run. What a difference a couple of days make! Monday night we were celebrating Sano's pinch hit HR deep into the Minneapolis night for a walk off win against Atlanta and an 8-2 stretch. Today we come in losers of 3 straight and a single game ahead of Cleveland, who just will not go away. The Indians are riding a stretch of playing .700+ baseball in their last 50 games and a win tonight would tie our Twins for 1st place atop the AL Central. In not so good news, Nelson Cruz joined Byron Buxton on the IL today with a strained left wrist. With how hot his bat has been, it's a shame to see him go down. Interesting lineup tidbit as it seems Mitch Garver is not in the lineup again, which marks the 5th time in the last 8 games he will not start. Hopefully Mr. Smeltzer can carry some momentum off of his last start and limit the early runs, something Twins pitching has not been able to do in their last 3 contests. There's been a lot of lunging at the panic button around the forums the last couple days. I want to remind everyone, this team is still on pace to win 98 games, there are 47 games left in the season and as of right now still are in 1st place. A hated QB around these parts once said RELAX. Let's wait and panic until it's actually warranted!! Here's to breaking that 3 game losing streak, scoring some early runs and to Friday night! More of this: and this: Good Guys: 1. Max Kepler CF 2. Jorge Polanco SS 3. Miguel Sano DH 4. Eddie Rosario LF 5. Marwin Gonzalez 3B 6. Luis Arraez 2B 7. C.J. Cron 1B 8. Jason Castro C 9. Jake Cave RF Starting Pitcher : Devin Smeltzer Bad Guys: TBA

No but I don't think they will give up 6 ER in the 1st couple innings of every game either.

I'm going to try and not let the last 3 games dictate if they are melting down or not. Previous to that they had won 8/10 and the rotation was pitching just fine. Next 3 games will be telling.

I don't think it has anything to do with trusting the pen in any of these 3 games. He tried to let Berrios get out of his own mess, and he failed. It was 6-0 at that point. He let Perez pitch because it was the 3rd inning and 6-0 and a big series with the Indians started the next day. We needed Perez to give us more innings. Last night Gibson probably should have been pulled, but what...1 or 2 batters prior? It was the 5th inning in a 2 run game.

That would have been for 2015 right? Didn't they waste a year by calling him up in 2014, one they could have saved or am I off on that? If not that makes sense, but yeah completely on Kirilloff. If he was ripping the cover off the ball it would be a different story. Edit: You answered my question in above post about service time.

There were a large group of posters who ripped the front office a new one for burning Jorge's option in 2014, and I think I was probably one of them. There were people in 2017 who suggested DFA'ing him because he was struggling and they couldn't send him down. Yes, he turned out fine, but was it worth 20 combined plate appearances he got in the bigs in 2014 and 2015? It's extremely risky, especially for an offense who still has a ton of explosion even without Cruz and Buck in the lineup.

I get the excitement of someone new and fresh and highly regarded, but he's 21 hitting .269/.330/.391 in AA. It just seems like a wasted option, much like they did with Jorge in 2014 if they call him up right now.

I see that, but it goes both ways.

I don't consider a collapse when a team playing .500 or slightly above it and the other team wins at .725 clip. Twins still on pace to win 98 games. I don't think anyone thought or believes this team is a 110 win team. The Tribe are 19-8 since the break and 35-14 since June 12th. That's a pace to win 117 games. The bats need to wake up before the 6th inning. They have scored 19 runs in the last 3 games, and 2 of them have come before the 6th inning. Yes, the starting pitching needs to be better, but early runs change games.

If the price for Minor really was headlined by a single guy in the Top 100, he would have been dealt.

Today they were down 4 runs with 3 runs left to play and yesterday it was 8-0 when Berrios left the game. What exaclty do you want Rocco to do? He can't burn the backend of the pen and just hope the offense comes to life. You need to pick your battles...and I think Rocco did fine the way both the offense and defense played today.

Johan didn't even get out of the 4th inning in a postseason game with the Yankees. Like someone else said, it's nostalgia talking. Even Santana got shelled from time to time.

Maybe give the front office more than 3 seasons to develop pitching if the argument they haven't developed enough pitching yet? Like I said, Pleasac tossed a really nice game today, but that ERA is a lot more shiny than any and all advanced stats point it out to be. :shrug: Look deeper into those Berrios starts. He gave up 3 runs or less in 8 of them, and 0/1 in half of them. It's a team game. Half of those runs given up against CHW were unearned, btw.

He's not getting cut.

He was bound to come around some point. Had an OPS of .939 all of last season....which makes his OPS of .652 in the 1st half even more remarkably awful.

ON THE BOARD

I'm not sure you can really use that narrative in this game. They are a better club with him in the lineup but how much difference would Buck out there have made?