Western SD Fan

I've been on the Fire Rocco march for quite a while. With that being said, even if you fired him tomorrow, who do you replace him with? I think Tingler is worse than Rocco. Pete Maki? Tommy Watkins? We already want them replaced. Maybe you bring Toby Gardenhire up from St. Paul with the hope he'll bring his father in as an advisor. I just don't see any of the current group of coaches instilling any kind of fire in this team either.

Correct. I wouldn't expect any changes until either the team is sold or pulled off the market. The FO will sell off the expiring player's contracts for peanuts. Does MLB owners invest in Broadway plays anymore?

Nothing. This is Plouffe's 11th game called this season, and he has been consistent in his criticism in all 11 games so far and that's not including his weekly appearances on the Skor North Twins Show on YouTube.

Someone needs to explain to me why Tommy Watkins has a job. I don't even mean it from the perspective of he's terrible at sending the runners home. It just seems like the runners aren't even looking at him going from 1st to 3rd and it's causing them to slow down at 2nd and look for the ball and eventually stop instead of going from 1st to 3rd. I saw it yesterday with Ty France and tonight with Lee.

Think of the positives. At least Seattle missed the extra point!

Correct. I personally like listening to Dan Shulman with the Blue Jays, but a lot of people can't stand his partner, Buck Martinez.

I'm assuming you are at the game tonight from your earlier photo? I heard boos on the TV after the last home run. Just curious if that is what you heard at the game?

That seems to be a Twins pitching specialty, at least the pitchers developed by the farm system. None of them can seem to handle adversity and tighten it back up and try to control it.

I understand that Raleigh is likely faster than Rowdy Tellez was, but he should have been able to get Raleigh out there.

What is this sorcery of taking advantage of another team's misakes?! I thought this was a gentlemen's game!

Do you walk the bases loaded and force Wallner to beat you?

Starting to believe that more and more with listening to the report that Correa had with the coaches. Where is Rocco on this? Why is Rocco not requiring fielding practice after the disastrous weekend against Milwaukee? Running the bases? Why is it that Correa has to bring this up?

I like that Ober is generating ground balls tonight for a fly ball pitcher. RISP with nobody out! LET'S GO!!

I also like how he has responded to embarrassing himself on Saturday by not running out the strikeout for the last out of the game.

Ober is susceptible to giving up the gopher ball. Another thing to look for is Ober's velocity and to see if he is still below his career average or if they have done something to help his hip from his last start.

This is looking more and more like a desperation attempt to further baby the back end of the rotation. We (fans) are measuring how deep the start or appearance is by number of innings pitched and the Twins staff is measuring by the number of at bats that pitcher faces. If we compare the other pitchers that have been through the pipeline during their first two years at the MLB level, we seem to get similar results. I included Joe Ryan even though he was an almost finished product when he came to the Twins and Paddack, since up until this year, he has not been a pitcher that goes deep into ballgames. SWR 2022-2025 (1 start in both 2022 and 2023): 41 games and 18.4 AB/game Festa 2024-2025: 21 games and 17.9 AB/Game Ober 2021-2022: 31 games and 18.3 AB/Game Ryan 2021-2022: 32 games and 20.0 AB/game Paddack 2024-2025: 32 games and 20.8 AB/game As stated above, Ryan was a nearly finished product when he was traded here. Paddack is my control as a back of the rotation starter since he is a veteran. As we can see, Paddack gets more run, likely because of his veteran status than the younger pitchers listed above. IMO, Ober is the only pitcher here who has graduated the pipeline, and his AB's/game was below SWR's at a similar time in their respective careers. The concept of never trusting a young pitcher seems to just be the Twins way. Ober and Ryan in 2021-2022 were not the "bulk" pitcher with an opener in front of them. They were allowed to start and figure it out. The difference is that the team wasn't expected to compete in 2021 and 2022, especially when they faded so badly in 2022, whereas the expectation to compete in 2025 has brought added pressure to do something to save the season. I personally think they should ditch the opener. They don't have a reliever capable of going multiple quality innings like other teams when they use an opener. The other issue of the opener is that when it doesn't work, as in the opener seeing 6+ batters in the inning, you're really stuck as to 1) leaving them out there to rot to get out of the inning, 2) bringing in your "starter" in the middle of an inning, or 3) waste another reliever to get out of the inning. They also don't run into teams that suddenly turnover their lineups after the opener is out of the game (right Rocco?). Starters just need to be more efficient with their pitches and this solution searching for a problem goes away. When you have a batter 0-2 and then throw another 6 pitches to finally get them out, the starter is going to wear out quicker.

Let's hope today's start is a new chapter for SWR. He was finally allowed to pitch the third time through the order today. Starting in the 3rd inning (halfway through the 2nd time through the order) to the 6th inning, he only allowed one baserunner and was efficient with his pitches in 8,8,16, and 11 for his last 4 innings. I realize he gave up 4 runs (3 earned), but given the pitching woes as of late, that's a victory. SWR is supposed to be a back of the rotation starter, and he is giving you what you would expect from a back of the rotation starter. My more immediate concern is why the rest of the staff has all of a sudden slid back and can't seem to get out of the 5th inning.

I will give Rocco a rare compliment amongst all of the bad play this past week. Whether he was forced by a battered bullpen or not, he actually let SWR go a third time through the order and SWR responded with his best pitching of the afternoon in that spot. He gave what I would call a back end of the rotation quality start, 6 IP and 3-4 runs, essentially kept us in the game. Unfortunately, the offense thought it was just too hot out there to stand on those bases and didn't help him out.

I wouldn't call any lefty that can channel the Ghost of Jamie Moyer through an Ouija board in the same breath as the pitchers you just named above. See Patrick Corbin, Colton Gordon, Brandon Walter, Abbott, and Nick Lodolo. Those are just the lefties we have faced in the last two weeks and each of them have embarrassed us.

Was 103 where I live today and that is what is coming to Minnesota. Oh yes. And Minnesota has humidity!

Like a banana being duct taped to a wall modern art?

Worst part about the way Wentz is pitching right now is that someone has to pitch the ninth inning. Maybe they'll score another run or two. Bride should have his arm back by now.

I apologize. I didn't realize you were a TV personality. /s

That gives a lot more context to my post right above you.

Only thing scarier than TV personalities doing math are lawyers doing math.