Western SD Fan

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. Winston Churchill

My money would be that it is just the Mistake on the Lake.

Rare bad throw from Jackson. I think he has been our best catcher at trying to control the run game.

Royals just swept the Giants. I know the Giants have more faults than the Bay Area, but it still was a sweep.

Just thought of this. Did Cleveland give Grady Sizemore a round of applause? I hope so since he was such a great player for them in the early 2000's.

Did that ball go out of play? Must not have if they didn't award Jackson home.

I think we are seeing something here. Ober's pitch mix works with a team full of free swingers as they can't really square him up. Cleveland really doesn't do that and just puts balls in play. The Rick Anderson School of Pitching doesn't work well with a team that hits like that plus poor defensive range.

It was a slow dribbler. Ramirez has decent speed, so Lewis had to bare hand it to make a play and missed the ball with his throwing hand. It happens as it would have been a tough, but doable play.

Ramirez proving he's back. Tagging from first an aggressive baserunning play.

I'm not a fan of the track record Twins hitters have had when facing these "bad" pitchers. It typically has been greeting with a warm blanket, a soft pillow, and a box of chocolates. Or the baseball version, a 6-7 innings, 2 hits, no run performance.

Smith spent more time jogging to the mound than he will going through the Twins lineup.

Don't take this as a callout. I'm using your post to ask the question. If this is what they are doing, why are prospects like Quick and Dasan Hill so highly touted? I understand they may have the tools to be a ML pitcher, but if they don't get a chance to truly stretch out, then what is the point?

This one is closer to the target:

If you would have told me that the Twins throwing essentially a bullpen game and we are still in it and held Cleveland to 4 runs? I would have taken it.

We could have an Aaron Bummer, but he just signed a minor league deal with the Royals.

I was surprised he was called out initially. I thought he was safe.

As much as it pains me to say, I hope someone is warming in the bullpen.

"Results may vary"

Gave the error to Messick. Wouldn't have expected that.

I don't remember which team had the fine system set up by the players. That's a fineable challenge.

It's a figment of your imagination. Go back to sleep.

Cleveland has such a high wall that wall scrapers are not allowed.

Tonight's lineup:

This was taken from the Skor North Twins Show on Friday when discussing untouchables in trades. They did an analysis of the players taken at a snapshot in time that were the top 15 prospects. A listener had challenged that we should not trade ANY of our current players in the top 15. This snapshot was taken from the Twins top prospects (per MLB pipeline) for 2020: #1 - Royce Lewis: Not realized the hype but can still be a solid ML player. Tough to swallow for a #1 overall draft pick. #2 - Alex Kiriloff: Out of baseball due to permanent injury. #3 - Trevor Larnach: Finally realizing some potential. Likely will never be a high-end contributor to a team. Should be a solid platoon bat. #4 - Jordan Balazovic: Out of baseball. Never truly materialized in any role. #5 - Jhoan Duran: Will go down as one of the best closers we have ever had. #6 - Ryan Jeffers: - Current catcher and one of the best in MLB Others include: Keoni Cavaco (Indy ball), Wander Javier, Blaine Enlow, Lewis Thorpe (out of baseball), Matt Canterino (only player hurt more than Buxton), Brent Rooker (A's), Akil Badoo (borderline ML), Matt Wallner (St. Paul), Gilberto Celestino (AAA-Texas) Out of that list, 10 have actually received ML playing time and only 5 are currently on a ML roster. This could be from drafting, development, or both. The point is I believe the organization holds onto prospects too long or doesn't do adequate enough assessments of them to figure out if they truly can help the organization. If you are truly going to go for it, you need to be willing to trade assets and prospects that other teams actually want. Not doing this has led us to trade deadline deals that involve Sam Dyson or Trevor Richards, if we were lucky enough to get that result. As to respond to the trade possibilities listed above, I'm not sure I do any of them. Peralta is going to require more than the Twins are willing to pay, in both cash and prospects. If you bring Gunner in, what do you do with Culpepper, or Lee, Clemens, Lewis, and possibly Roden, Martin, and Keaschall for that matter? One or two of that combination would have to be traded to make room for Gunner. For the last one, I am sticking with Royce as my guy at 1B. He is getting better at defense there and while he is not swinging the hottest bat in the lineup, his bat is not detrimental to the team like it was earlier in the season. I also get an extra year of arbitration with Lewis that I don't get with a potential trade of Garcia, Jr. I'm still in the camp of doing what Tampa Bay does at trade deadlines. Trading away expiring contracts from positions of strength and acquiring expiring contracts from needed positions. You don't sell out the farm, but you keep yourself in contention. Especially this year since we don't know what next year may bring.

so, you're suggesting that the slowest pitcher we put out there tonight was the most effective? 🤔