This series doesn’t set up well—rookie going in game 1, then Carrasco and Bauer, in Cleveland. We might want to hold off on the coronation just yet (John and Aaron spent the entire Sunday podcast proclaiming the division was essentially over), and see if they can eke our one victory in this series.
Is this a thing?: Marwin “More Win” Gonzalez. Also, let’s see if the Twins can pull off the same trick they did against Houston earlier: win a four game series while scoring fewer runs. This series, the Rays have outscored the Twins 19-14. (Actually, I think the Twins and Astros scored the same number of runs in that four game set. I’d take a five-run victory today...)
I just want to note the name “Yeltsin Encarnacion.” Also, good job Gordon, Raley, Rortvedt, Jeffers, Blankenhorn, Larnach, and Diaz. Quite a few of the kids had very good months! Now let’s hope Royce Lewis gets going.
If it hits the roof in fair territory, it’s a live ball. If it hits in foul territory, it’s foul. Of course, you could make an argument for everything in that place being foul, I suppose...
Aside from the fact that the ball was going to be a home run — his second home run at that field Sano has not gotten credit for! — how in the world can they allow the ball to be catchable after it hits a speaker? You can’t catch a ball off the wall and record an out. At a minimum it shouldn’t be an out. What would make more sense is a ground rule double...or even a ground rule triple. Dumb place, dumb rule. I’d like to see the projected distance of that one. (The one a few years back was mammoth.)
Lets hope Rutschman falls to 13. Thanks for doing this series, look forward to seeing whom the Twins nab. My wildly uninformed guess (yet slightly better informed now) is Jung or Carroll.
Yes, it was really amazing that Jeffries came up with that ball. Coupled with the diving’s catch by Gamel, and the Twins were thaaaaaat close to scoring twice as many runs.
Does anyone remember “TWIB Notes” from the This Week in Baseball show? Maybe use a play on that: TWIB Notes, TD Edition. Thanks for putting together these summaries, John. Interesting to see the big picture of the site. I’d suggest a review of game thread #s (and thank any thread starters who did multiple threads).
Twins season by tens: 6-4 7-3 6-4 6-4 9-1 That’s a nice run. Particularly impressive that two of their last three games they have been down three runs and still won. Still hard to fathom they are putting up these kind of offensive numbers with Cruz and Garver out. The Twins have scored 90 runs in their past 10 games.
This visit, if I were to guess, is for Wes Johnson to get Brusdar on the mound with Trackman and Rhapsodo and see where he’s at and see if there are any mechanical changes they want him to focus on.
One thing not mentioned yet that I like about Rocco’s management style: he sets the lineups for an entire series at a time at the beginning of the series, so the players know which days they will be playing. That might have been done before, not exactly sure, but it’s definitely being done know, and I think it makes a lot of sense.
Went I bed as they were down 3-0. Woke up this morning to cruise through the dvr. Unlike in years past, I thought “this line-up, a three runs, that’s doable.” Sure was. They tied it up in a blink.