Danchat

Kepler now has a 31/36 BB/K ratio, which is pretty solid, though his average is still disappointing. Does anyone else think he should be leading off instead of Grossman?

Gotta give credit to Adrianza, his average is up to .242 and he's had considerable more pop in his bat the past week or two. Also, seeing Rosario taking a called strikeout is weird. But at least we have clutch Escobar backing up him!

I was expecting more of these type of games from Romero - he's still got a lot to learn as a MLB starter, and he'll have to endure bumpy starts like this one.

Oh good, they listened to me and promoted Wade. Hopefully we won't have to wait another year and a half for his next promotion.

Maybe Riverbrian should consider writing game threads for non-series-opening games?

I feel like the bullpen is masking the problem that the hitters aren't scoring enough runs. You're not going to win games when you score just two runs. Also, it's nice to see Lynn turn back into the pitcher he once was. These last few starts for him have looked like the guy I thought the Twins signed. He's clearly worked hard to improve his game after starting so dreadful. I don't feel like this team should be 6 games under .500 with a rotation like this. So Cave is coming up for Duffey... why? What is it going to take to get Busenitz up here? They could really use another bullpen arm, but for now they'll go with less relievers...

Rooker is going to help his K/BB ratio with a 4 BB game. How much longer does LaMonte Wade need to be at AA? He's more than ready to play at AAA.

I highly doubt one prospect's development cycle is going to change how the new regime develops their own prospects. It seems they're going to take their time with him, but it's probably not related to Buxton.

Hard to believe Pressly has gone from being demanded to being the closer in April to being demanded to be DFA'd now. Molly has simply overused him (he's pitched 8 times without rest since May 1st!!) and he needs to realize that Ryan is going to have streaks of effectiveness and streaks of bad baseball. As always, Molitor just keeps plugging Pressly (and others, Reed, Belisle 2017, etc.) in these situations and it's costing us games - this is why we continue to lose one run ball games.

I would wait until the end of the season before I offer him anything. I'd like to see if Nick Gordon will be worthy of starting in 2019 and also not sign Escobar when he's hitting his hottest. But I would be ready to offer him something in the range of 3 years $30-36M

Have I mentioned how much I like Escobar? This dude is a stud at the plate. He's up to .292 with some serious XBH power.

Boy, even if Garver's bat finally comes around, he's a pretty big baserunning butcher when he does get on base.

Nice, it's great to see he's doing well after missing a month or so with an injury. He'd definitely be worth a call-up if needed.

Turning on the TV to see Lynn facing Trout with the bases loaded and 2 outs... and then seeing him strike Trout out... good stuff. Definitely though Trout was going to break the game open there.

The Angels have Simmons, Calhoun, Ohtani, Middleton, and Wood on the DL. Their roster is weakened by injuries similarly to ours, so hopefully the Twins will seize this opportunity and win the series.

Wow, six pages in just 8 hours? Talk about a hot topic! I would like to weigh on a few things some here have said but there's too much to quote, so I'll just drop some thoughts here. Sano's defense according to Fangraphs at 3B this season: ranked 55th out of 59 players (min. 60 Innings) with a -3.1 Def rating. Meanwhile, Dozier ranks 30th out of 56 players at 2B with a +0.3 rating. By the way, I think some here are very down on Dozier, but you/they may not realize that he's currently slashing .247/.326/.430 with a .756 OPS. That's not bad and it's actually close to his career line (.250/.327/.451/.778 OPS). I don't think it's because of lack of effort - he's a streaky player who's going to hit a bunch of solo HRs for a few weeks and will have some very pronounced slumps. However I will say his 25 RBIs are very disappointing compared to his 99 and 93 RBI seasons in 2017 and 2018 respectively. (part of it is his below average clutch hitting, but I do believe it's also because the Twins bottom of the order are black holes, can't get RBIs when nobody's on base). Also, I would like to travel to the alternate dimension where the Twins signed Yu Darvish. Obviously it's too early to call him a bust, but I can only imagine the vitriol here. It was kinda crazy how many here were lamenting how the Twins failed to sign him but I haven't heard a peep since the season started (I don't mean to call anyone out, more of looking back and seeing how silly we all looked in hindsight. I was on board an extension for Buxton!). Turns out the Twins aren't just an ace away from being a world series contender, huh? One more thing: Pressly's on pace to pitch 83.1 innings this season. Please give him a break, Molly! Oh, and: Pressly March-April: 0.59 ERA (pitched on zero day's rest twice) Pressly May-June: 6.00 ERA (pitched on zero day's rest 8 times!!!!) This reminds me of a very similar problem with Belisle last year... he was much more effective when he had at least one day off.

Nice article. Yeah, the Twins could really use Gordon... the only downside appears to be his glove. Having Adrianza in the lineup almost every day has hurt this team, and Gordon could be the spark-plug this offense needs, but the closer Polanco gets to returning, the less likely I see Gordon coming up as a starter. I'm not sure if Gordon really needs much time to develop at AAA before he's ready to go in the big leagues. Claiming Taylor Motter made some sense as they've stashed him at AAA with an open 40 man roster spot, probably to see if they can fix his bat. If they could improve his hitting, he'd be a solid bench player and a definite upgrade from somebody like Gregorio Petit. However, if the Twins need to make a move, they could probably DFA him and sneak him through waivers. And don't get me started about the Pressly/Reed overuse situation. Meanwhile Busenitz is crushing AAA for the second straight year (0.47 ERA in 19 IP!!) and not to mention that Moya and Curtiss are dealing and ready for another shot.

I have to agree. Even with all the success last year, I was still very unsatisfied with Molitor as the coach. I know this is a young team but Molitor seems to have little control of the players. Also predictably bad with the bullpen moves (and I know you are always all over him for keeping starters in too late). The one thing I like more about 2018 Molitor is that he's cut down on the bunts.

I try to avoid hyperbole but the Twins resemble a little league team today. Far too many gaffes for a major league team.

I remember hearing he was below average, but he's definitely worse than I thought. I recall hearing he was the opposite of his peer prospect Stuart Turner, who had no bat but was a great defender.

We do play them tomorrow, but you would be right if this was a three game series.

Holy cow, this is some bad baseball. The White Sox look like a superior team over this series and they trotted out Santiago today... bleh. And we all saw Pressly blowing this lead, right?

I dunno about Dozier's ground ball, Santiago just had to stick his glove out at the right time. That play can be a crapshoot but it's still another bad RISP PA for Dozier.

Sure, we did take 3 out of 4 games against the Indians, but this offense still isn't good. I think that was more of facing Cleveland's atrocious bullpen... though Santiago does look cooked out there...