Lagputter

The team operates under the uber-analytics fallacy that strikeouts "are just a type of out".  This is factually inaccurate, but that's what they believe, so they teach their players to swing as hard as the can every single time and not to worry about striking out.  So the hitting coach is teaching exactly what the FO wants.  
To this FO, strikeouts are not the problem - they're the plan.  

Forgetting the numbers for just a minute, I think this style of managing is really hard on the fans. Obviously with the money tied up in CC and Buck, they're going to be the marketing "face" of the franchise, and they are going to be accommodated in every way as far as opportunities. But IMO there's a number of guys we need to see play against <gasp> pitching from both sides, to know if they are the future of the franchise. This style of management ignores the need for players to have a role, understand a role, get into the flow, whatever. As a fan I'm just left wondering. I can't imagine what it feels like to be penciled in high in the batting order and get pinch hit for before your first AB.

Agree. 

I also thought Baldelli overmanaged in last night's game. I wouldn't say that has been true on a consistent basis, though.
Every major league manager has the goal of winning as many games as possible over the course of a season, with the exception of those managing teams that are in fall training mode after being eliminated from the postseason. That means trying, as TK was noted for saying, to put the players in a position where they can succeed. I'm sure that's what he was trying to accomplish last night, but pinch hitting for your DH when he hasn't even batted yet, well...
I know there are many who want the Twins to replace Baldelli. There's nothing wrong with having that opinion. But it's more difficult and more important to hire a manager than it is to fire one. I'd like those who advocate for making this move to list candidates for hire or at the very minimum to list specific traits you feel the next manager should have.

I'm going to start by saying I thought the early pinch hitting was absolutely ridiculous last night. Wasn't a fan of it then, and am not a fan of it now. 
That being said...the Twins had 4 hits, and 4 walks last night. 2 of the hits, and 3 of the walks, came from the 2 guys who entered the game as pinch hitters in the 2nd and 3rd. I don't know that we really expected Kirilloff and Julien to do better than reaching base 5 times, with 1 homerun mixed in. 
As a general rule I will never think pinch hitting in the 2nd and 3rd for your 1 and 4 hole hitters is smart. Why shorten your bench so quick? But those moves didn't kill the team last night. Buxton swinging at a first pitch breaking ball off the plate from a reliever who just entered the game was worse for the team. Buxton leaving 3 men in scoring position with 2 outs was far worse for the team. The players lost the game, even if I'll never understand Rocco's moves in the slightest.

We should also wonder why we are leading MLB in striking out.Seems to me the hitting coach should be scrutinized along with Rocco

Sometimes the most obvious answer is correct.  They got 4 hits.  That won't win many games.  When Baldelli starts taking ABs, I will blame it on him.  Until then, I am going to assign blame to the players who don't perform.  

As if that’s a prerequisite. ‘Do what notoriousgod71 likes’, check. Do what RiverBrian wants. Check. Be who LastOnePicked wants. Check. Sorry, but Lol. 
Who knows what the criteria is. Doesn’t mean he can’t be let go at any time, I don’t find him particularly inspiring from my perspective in the cheap seats, but meh, whatever. I’m more concerned with the performers who aren’t performing. I don’t think that’s a manager issue. Could be an organization issue. If that’s the case, firing Baldelli will have little affect.

Doesn’t mean he can’t be released. Contracts mean nothing. Players get DFA’d all the time, or outright released. Managers, too. Molitor was let go mid-contract. That said, I’ve always been pretty indifferent to the effect the manager has over difference-making wins and losses. Can they affect the outcome of a single game here and there? Yes. But you know who has the bigger affect over wins and losses? The players. How many games have we lost via not scoring in a bases loaded situation? How many times via BP implosion? A manager can’t swing the bat or pitch the ball for them. They can only play the hand they’ve been dealt.  Change for the sake of change won’t change the outcome. Imo, unless there are serious clubhouse issues, which doesn’t seem to be the case.

The Twins are currently down 4-0. The top of the 4th is just getting started. 
The Giants used on opener in the 1st inning with right handed John Brebbia.
Left handed Sean Manaea entered the game in the 2nd inning.  
After a 1-2-3 first inning. Rocco reacted to this by pinch hitting Solano for Julien before he even swung a bat in the cleanup spot and then later in the 3rd inning. Kyle Garlick pinch hit for Alex Kirilloff. 
Here's a note for opposing managers. Start an opposite hand opener and Rocco will over react early. 
I understand why he did it. He shouldn't have done it. Yeah Manaea splits are worse against Right Handed Hitters but let's face it... Manaea has an ERA of 7.81 this season... so how many innings did you think Manaea would throw? Did you just fall for Gabe Kapler saying "Hey Look Your Shoes Untied" because I'll bet a Right Hander is in the game before the 6th and you've... well... whatever. I hope he wasn't expecting Junis in the 2nd because he just threw yesterday. Where did he think Kapler was going after the opener?  
Rocco has just wrapped up the Over Managing Manager of the Year Award. Nobody else will top it. He can start writing his acceptance speech immediately after the game. 
I've been on his side... He may have lost me tonight. 

Solano has done just fine for most of the season. He's in a slump. Most of the team has been terrible for at least 1/3 of the season. Everyone is always super eager to bring up the next generation talent until they too have a few bad weeks. We might as well DFA Correa and Buxton while we're at it. 

Julien needs everyday playing time, and there's no room in the infield for him against righties right now. Better for him to be in AAA getting everyday at bats. Only way Julien could get in the lineup right now is if he could play 3B, but it seems pretty clear the Twins don't trust his arm for that.

To be clear, the games are Friday, Saturday, Sunday, not Thursday-Saturday. 
Also, Battenfield is 0-2, not 10-2.
 
Let's get the sweep.

I really believe that blaming Rocco for last night’s loss is a bit extreme.  Decision by decision. . . here we go.
Taking out Joe Ryan “early”.  It’s hard to know how Ryan was feeling.  He was definitely less sharp in the sixth inning than he was earlier in the game.  Jorge Lopez, statistically their best reliever so far this year, was rested and ready.  He came in and a guy hit a really good pitch (not a mistake pitch) out of the park.  It happens.  I take that gamble all day long.  I might be the world’s biggest Joe Ryan fan, but he’s not Bob Gibson.  He was not trending in the right direction at that point.
Griffin Jax comes in to pitch the eighth inning and does well.  He’s been a one inning guy all year and he did his job.  Could he pitch another inning?  Maybe, but it’s not crazy to think he would turn into a pumpkin in another inning.  One inning relievers are pretty much the standard across the league.
Brock Stewart comes in to pitch the ninth.  This was certainly his craziest decision, and it looked a little scary, but he got by with it.  It’s not something I would have chosen, but again, he got by with it and the Twins lived to see extra innings.  Maybe it bodes well for Stewart’s future to get through something like that. 
Caleb Thielbar comes out for the tenth.  The argument is that Duran should have been pitching.  OK, so then who do you have for the eleventh assuming that Duran had done the job?  When you go to extra innings, everyone’s bullpen becomes a little bit unraveled, plus it seems likely that Duran was only a break glass in an emergency option, since he pitched two in a row over the weekend and we need someone to be able to pitch the next game. Duran has been very good, but not lights out this season. By the way, statistically speaking, Thielbar has a lower WHIP, a lower ERA, has issued less walks, and has given up less home runs than Duran so far this season - albeit over less of the opposing teams’ heart of the order.  Thielbar gave up ONE hit, a single and otherwise pitched well.  Oh, and the ball hit was out of the strike zone.  Good piece of hitting by a professional hitter.  The situation would not have been as dire if the Twins had been able to hit a little bit in the last couple of innings themselves.  By the way, imagine the gnashing of teeth on the White Sox side about giving up the tying home run to Nick Gordon, a guy hitting .140, a number which might currently overstate his hitting prowess. 
Sometimes things don’t work out the way we expect.  It’s a loss.  They will lose about 50 more games this season (as will almost every other team).  It will not break the season, nor would a victory have made it.  It’s funny, if a player gets a hit 40% of the time, he’s having a season for the ages and will likely be in the hall of fame, but we expect managers to bat 1.000 or he’s a bum.  Yikes!

Was Ryan cruising? the 6th wasn't an easy inning at all for all that he only faced 3 batters. a 12 pitch AB that ends in a walk is a real win for the hitter and it took a nice double play to end the inning. probably a 50-50 call there on whether to leave Ryan in or not...and I'm sure the hindsight folks would have buried Rocco if Ryan had been the one to surrender the dinger.
But using Lopez in the 7th makes a ton of sense if you're holding Duran to lock it down for the save: the 3-4-5 hitters were up and Lopez has been excellent this season and a prime choice to take the high leverage situation. I definitely prefer the Twins attitude of having their best relievers face the other team's best hitters in the late innings than trotting out the "closer" to pitch the 9th just because it's the 9th, even if the 7-8-9 guys are coming up.
This is actually old-school thinking for relievers, before Tony LaRussa convinced everyone that you were better off using your best pitcher to throw one inning and only in a save situation in the 9th (along with agents who convinced players (correctly) that they would get paid more if they were "closers" and insisted on having that defined role)

We're complaining about using Jorge Lopez? The guy who until yesterday had given up zero earned runs, and seven total baserunners in his previous 12 innings? OK.
 

Did Rocco say Duran was unavailable? Or did he just not get used because there was no save situation? I honestly don't know if Rocco said he was unavailable after the game.

Can't be trusted so shouldn't be on the team is an interesting thing to try to argue against 1 game's bullpen use. If Stewart can't be trusted he shouldn't be on the team either, no? I don't understand your point. When was he supposed to have used Pagan or Moran last night? He used 3 of his 4 best relievers, and the other one he used didn't allow a run. What are we mad at?
I don't know whether Duran was, or wasn't, available yesterday. Isn't it possible Rocco was saving him for a save situation? If they'd had the lead in the 9th or 10th do you know that they wouldn't have had Duran in at that point? Blindly blaming Rocco is no better than blindly being a Rocco apologist.

Ryan's velocity dipped quite a bit at the end of the 6th compared to the rest of the game. If you are assuming that he would give you another full inning, while throwing 87 mph fastballs, then I don't know what to tell you. I would argue that keeping in a tired pitcher is more stupid than not at that point.
Lopez is a good pitcher, and Eloy got him for a homerun on a pitch 8 inches inside. Sometimes you just tip your cap.
And, lastly, just because bringing in a reliever in a specific spot didn't work in this specific game DOES NOT MEAN that doing something different would yield a different result.

I stopped reading this article when the writer (whom I assume to be the OP of this thread) stated Dee Gordon tied the game with a home run. At that point I concluded that I was reading the opinion of someone who doesn't know the Twins very well. For that reason I don't value his opinion on anything Twins-related.

Your article contains your opinions which I don't agree with. Lopez was used the same way he had been used all year and as you say without allowing a run. Your vague fascination with the "closer" role would have changed the way he had been used successfully all season. You say you don't know if Duran was available.  He was used two days in a row two days prior and I'm sure was on the shelf. Last year they took a guy who could only get through 16 innings the season prior and got him through an all-star season unscathed. I trust their judgement on Duran. Jax has only been used as a one inning pitcher and that is how they are going to continue to use him. 
There were four relievers available last night and they used them. Since they felt it was likely they would need to use Stewart, they preferred him in the 9th and the better reliever to start an inning with a man on second in the 10th. This is reasonable to me.
If your going to join the mob blaming Rocco for every outcome you don't like I will simply state that it is the organization that collectively came up with these usage strategies you deride, not just Rocco. 

According to the radio broadcast, Maeda has left the field now with a trainer at his side for 3 of his 4 starts.  Sounds to me like more of a candidate for the IL rather than the bullpen?  But yes, the month-log Maeda experiment needs to come to an end in favor of Ober.

Is it time for Maeda to move to middle relief and Ober to stay up as 5th starter?

I think AK only stays down much longer if his wrist starts to act up.  Hopefully that does not happen.  He clearly has the ability to hit, when his wrist is healthy.  I hope he gets called up soon.  Our offense could use a jolt. 

I thought they might keep Kirilloff at AAA for a while to prove he was truly ready but he sure looks ready out of the gate.  A couple weeks anywhere near this pace and it would be hard to keep him down.  Kirilloff and Polanco on the right side of the infield will be a welcome sight.
Can anyone enlighten me as to Cossetti's relative ability defensively?