Brandon Warne

They should sign Carlos Santana in the offseason and just have him lead off.

They still own his rights for what, three more years? I guess there's really no other reason to leak the info. I'm not sure what your conclusion would be, then.

Please click through to Zone Coverage here to read this article in full. Robbie Grossman came off the disabled list on Tuesday morning and is in the lineup against the Rays, batting ninth and DH’ing against righty Jake Odorizzi. With that move, the Twins offense is almost completely healthy. That’s not to say that Miguel Sano is not a significant loss — he is — but rather from a health standpoint, the Twins only have one player on the shelf offensively — as opposed to, say, a handful of pitchers. Assuming Sano gets healthy in the semi-near future, daily lineups will have the potential to be a beautiful thing as manager Paul Molitor will have plenty of capable players at his disposal for the stretch run. We all like to play armchair quarterback, or in this case…couch manager? I don’t know the proper terminology, but there’s a good bet you’ll see a lot of comments every time the Minnesota Twins official account tweets or posts the lineup on Facebook, as though Paul W. Simonson of Circle Pines (names have been falsified to protect the stupid) knows better than Molitor whether Joe Mauer has a better shot to get a hit against Chris Sale than Kennys Vargas does. But it’s still fun to think we know better. So let’s assume Sano was healthy; what would the perfect Twins lineup look like facing a left- or right-handed starter? Let’s first take a look at the right side: Mauer 1B Buxton CF Dozier 2B Sano 3B Rosario LF Kepler RF Polanco SS Castro C Grossman DH

Like it or not, this is how a team says it publicly. They aren't going to send a "Miguel Sano is overweight" press release.

To be fair, we don't know his motivation for publishing it or when he filed it, exactly.

Agree. My initial feeling was that there was a good article in there someplace in the first one -- but it was sullied by the need to have #takes.

I guess my question is this: have they said it to Sano multiple times and now someone in the organization leaked it?

Here's a question I'd like to hear: how would everyone handle reporting this so they weren't fat shaming? Because it's clearly obvious the Twins are concerned about his weight in the long run -- and I think they're right to be.

...and I agree with that. It was poorly timed delivery on a pertinent message.

They know who he is and what he does -- and still gave him that information. They trusted him to disseminate it.

Then again, they trusted him with that information -- most likely because they know him and have a working face-to-face relationship with him. It cuts both ways.

You don't care who breaks it, but you aren't going to read multiple people with the same story. So you'll either a. identify a reader you like and read it from them or b. read whoever has it first. You can say you don't care about who has something, but how we browse proves otherwise. And Gleeman never breaks news, so I don't know what the point of that part was anyway.

Really not sure how I feel about that either. It's kind of an easy conclusion, because if Perkins never pitches effectively again, one can say "SEE!" when in fact it might be the shoulder issue all along. Now with that said, it wasn't the only place I've ever heard someone say this. I wouldn't say it about Perkins because I don't have any evidence, but I highly doubt it's not something *somebody* told Souhan. I'm not putting any stock in it because it doesn't matter, since Perkins earned the contract and is probably underpaid for his career anyway.

In a vacuum that's true, but statistics say otherwise.

He was by Sano's locker when the Twins came back home. Sano never came out. And unless I'm misremembering, he didn't call him fat. That is a gross oversimplification. He said there's concern in the organization about him continuing to play at that weight.

Columnists exist because of the dynamic in sports today that it's about WHO says something, not WHAT is said. If I tweet something and LaVelle tweets it a half hour later, who do you think is going to get more retweets? In a perfect world, a story reported first no matter who reports it gets more love. But then again, having equity in a market isn't a bad thing either.

You can be good without access and bad with it. Those aren't mutually exclusive. But the fundamental misunderstanding of the job from those who don't have it can be very, very frustrating. So too can the idea that everyone is there to do the same job, which is why Souhan spelled it out the way he did. He certainly took some pot shots I didn't think were necessary, but his overall point that people should know who does what was 100 percent true.

It's not that access = quality. It's that access = accountability. I.e. only saying things you'll say and then looking that person in the eye the next day.

He's alleging Perkins has not taken care of himself in recent years.

Swings dictate the outcome of virtually every game. That was no exception when the Kansas City Royals beat the Minnesota Twins 5-4 at Target Field to take a 2-1 series victory and again move onto the brink of .500 for the season at 67-68. However, in this case, it was two swings in the same plate appearance that sent the Twins to defeat — their 65th of the season — and, at the close of business Sunday, prevented them from expanding their 1.5-game lead on the Los Angeles Angels and Baltimore Orioles for the second Wild Card spot. The Twins took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the fifth, handed it back with two runs in the top of the sixth and again took it back with two runs in their half of the inning. With two outs, a 1-2 count and his team clinging to a 4-3 lead, reliever Alan Busenitz delivered a breaking ball well out of the strike zone to Royals center fielder Lorenzo Cain. We can be sure he didn’t take a full swing, but all hell broke loose when home plate umpire Marty Foster appealed to first base umpire Mike Muchlinski, who ruled Cain didn’t even take a half-swing. Twins manager Paul Molitor immediately sprang to the top step of the dugout, and began gesturing demonstrably toward Foster, who threw the skipper out with the fuse of a discount firecracker. Please click through to Zone Coverage here to read this article in full.

You also don't understand what clickbait is, then. I gotta eat.

The Minnesota Twins beat the Kansas City Royals 17-0 on Saturday night at Target Field to even the series heading into Sunday’s rubber game, and it wasn’t all Onelki Garcia’s fault. He didn’t give Nate Karns thoracic outlet syndrome. He didn’t impinge Danny Duffy’s elbow or pass out while intoxicated in a Burger King parking lot. He also didn’t purchase his own plane ticket to Minneapolis after posting a 5.04 ERA at Triple-A Omaha, with a 1.55 WHIP and nearly four walks per nine innings. But when Garcia took the mound at Target Field, he was in trouble from the word “go.” He threw just 23 pitches, but by the time he was done, the Twins had scored four runs and made just one out. For an offense that has had trouble hitting lefties all season long, the Twins wasted little time jumping the 28-year-old Cuban, who had made just four previous appearances in the big leagues which had gone much like this one (9.00 ERA, 2.43 WHIP). Brian Dozier fell behind 0-2 and coaxed a walk to lead off the first. Joe Mauer followed with a booming double to center. Byron Buxton — in his return to the lineup — hit a stand-up triple to the gap in right-center, and just 12 pitches into the game, the Twins had a 2-0 lead and were primed for more. Jorge Polanco followed with a booming double to the other gap, and came home to score on a Mitch Garver single to left one batter later to chase Garcia from the game. Please click through to Zone Coverage here for the full story.

Click the link up top.

“The Twins just won’t go away. They could lose 10-0, but they just won’t quit,” said Casey Stern on Sirius/XM’s Inside Pitch show on Friday afternoon. It was almost prophetic, as the Minnesota Twins went from winning in the most improbable way on Thursday afternoon to nearly repeating it against the Kansas City Royals on Friday night in a 7-6 loss at Target Field. The Twins scored two runs and had the bases loaded with two outs in the ninth against Royals closer Kelvin Herrera, but could not close the deal for a second walk-off win in a row. “It was a good fight,” said manager Paul Molitor. “We hung in there until the last round and made it interesting. We were one little knock away. It’s good to see that.” In fact, Herrera wasn’t even there for the finish. He left with lower forearm tightness, leaving Scott Alexander to get his second save of the season. Alexander walked Jorge Polanco -- after inheriting a 3-0 count against the switch hitter -- but got Eddie Rosario on a fastball to dance out of danger and get the Royals to within a game of .500 at 66-67. The win moved the Royals to within 3.5 games of the second Wild Card spot -- currently occupied by the Twins -- though they still have five teams in front of them or tied with them in what’s bound to be a wild September finish. The Twins managed to hold on to their 1.5-game lead over the Los Angeles Angels, who fell to the Texas Rangers, 10-9. Texas is now 67-67, and three games behind the Twins. Dillon Gee got the ball for the Twins, but did not get out of the third inning as he allowed five earned runs on six hits with a pair of strikeouts and three walks. Former teammate Mike Moustakas dealt the crushing blow, drilling a three-run home run to give the Royals a 5-2 lead. It’s not unreasonable to expect that Aaron Slegers -- who picked up his 15th win for Rochester on Friday night -- may get the call to start in this spot in the rotation next time around, as Molitor was noncommittal about whether Gee would make his next start. The Royals scored five runs in the third to take the lead after Polanco gave the Twins a 2-0 lead on his 10th home run of the season against Royals starter Jason Hammel. Polanco came into the season with just four career home runs in 290 plate appearances, and has now reached double digits in 427 trips to the plate this season. Polanco also became the seventh Twin with at least 10 home runs this season. Please click through to Zone Coverage to see this entire story here.

Please click through to Zone Coverage here to read this article in full. A lot of fans lament about how players get better after they leave the Twins, and sometimes it’s fun to draw up a 25-man roster of former players to see just how true that is. We’ve changed that up a little bit with this exercise, however. Here, we’re looking for players who have Twins fingerprints on them. Did a player get picked in the Rule 5 draft and get sent back? They would count. Did the Twins draft them but not sign them? Pick ‘em up! Did they go to spring training but not make the team? Let’s go! So what’s the best team we can make out of players who have the Twins’ fingerprints on them? Let’s see what we can come up with: Starting Lineup C – Jason Castro (current) 1B – Yonder Alonso (16th-round pick in 2005) 2B – Brian Dozier (current) 3B – Miguel Sano (current) SS – Jorge Polanco (current) LF – George Springer (48th-round pick in 2008) CF – Byron Buxton (current) RF – Aaron Hicks (2013-15) DH – J.D. Martinez (36th-round pick in 2006) This is a pretty damn good offense. No room for Joe Mauer and no room for Max Kepler in the starting lineup or even on the bench. I’m not sure how I’d line things up, but Hicks at the top probably starts things, and this team is going to score a ton of runs. I wasn’t expecting Castro behind the plate, but I’m also not buying Kurt Suzuki’s ridiculous season with the Braves, either.