Western SD Fan

I agree with you about Zebby. I think he gets lumped in mainly because losing Zebby really thinned out the rotation fast. Also, you'd prefer Zebby in the rotation over SWR.

My theory is that everyone is pressing too hard. You hear it from the interviews because one of the questions all of the pitchers have been asked is if they feel more pressure now that Pablo and Zebby are out for months. Pitchers feel they have to be perfect because they are getting no run support. Then when they miss, they get hammered. Batters are just looking lost up there and feel like they have to hit a 3 run home run every time they come up. One kind of feeds the other and everything blows up at once.

Rats! Our best pitcher is down for the game!

Soft-tossing lefty, right? The Ghost of Jamie Moyer lives!

It's my fault. I left to go get the whiskey jug.

Great news! Correa cannot hit into a GIDP!

Doesn't it feel like Buck has to come through here since the batters behind him can't hit anything?

Another run through the rotation like this and we can start shopping Paddack. Just because we will have sunk so far to become a seller.

I'm the same way. The White Sox just left with winning 1 game and just about made Hader blow a save last night.

Here is the lineup. 🙂

This is from Baseball Trade Values. Unless the CWS sent some money with Vaughn, it seems like we could have swung something like this. I also wouldn't give up on Civale yet. I expect the CWS to flip him before the trade deadline, so we get to see his progress on someone else's team before taking a run at him again. Maybe by then, the rotation will be a little clearer on what we need.

Welp. This moved rather quickly. I guess this comment is for the sake of the conversation. I would have liked to see this trade happen. Not only for the reasons stated above as an innings eater, an extra insurance policy for the rest of the staff in case they needed to put Ober on the IL or send SWR back down to St. Paul and hoping he could have been acquired cheaply. I'm not sure how cheap he could have been acquired though as he is the only starter on the market today. One final comment would have been the Twins could have used the same strategy they did with Jamie Garcia in 2017. They traded for him when they thought they were in contention and when they thought they fell out of contention, they traded him again. The Twins would have had a month to see whether they could figure it out, plenty of time to see if Civale would have stuck.

Something that really didn't come out until after the game today was this article by Dan Hayes from The Athletic linked here: Byron Buxton’s all-around effort leads Twins over Rangers; Jorge Alcala traded to Red Sox - The Athletic Way down at the bottom of the article is a short write up on Ober suffering from knee and hip discomfort since spring training. This likely has something to do with this reduced velocity as he admits in the article. This is very scary going forward as what we have seen from Ober lately may be the Ober we are going to see until the end of the season, or when he finally goes on the IL after the Twins are out of the playoff race. Especially considering that where Ober is performing now is still better than what is currently in St. Paul and the Twins are not going to go searching for a SP in June through a trade. With all of that being said, today seemed to be a case where we had chances early and squandered it away, especially with bases loaded and nobody out and do not score a run. I know we are supposed to think of pitchers as concentrating on their craft and not paying attention to the offense. It does seem though that maybe pitchers are human after all and see what we see and feel like now they have to be perfect because their teammates aren't going to pick them up. We may have seen a different Ober outing had the Twins scored more runs in the first or second innings today.

Remember when I said early in this game that the Ghost of Jamie Moyer could get this lineup out at least twice through? I'd like to update it to three times though the order.

I think it's safe to take Correa and Buxton out of the game. Which position player will be on the mound today?

Even the TV production crew took the day off. The game has been cutting in and out since the 4th inning watching on the MLB app.

I don't remember who the pitcher was that was sent down to AAA and then finally revealed an injury and was then put on the IL. Was it Ober?

Does anyone here notice that it seems the Twins pitchers collectively relax after two outs and then can't ramp back up when they get into trouble?

Bases loaded, nobody out. Texas has the Twins right where they want them.

They also took the first three of four and were going for the sweep on that fateful afternoon in Arlington and we all know how that season ended.

I think a retrospective of Cleveland's pitching pipeline should also be addressed. I bring it up because Cleveland's system is what we are supposed to be mimicking ours from. They bring a lot of people up, but they also don't seem to have any length to their starts or longevity in the rotation.

You do realize that just because we acquired a new toy to play with doesn't mean we have to break it out of the box today.

Again. Solo HR aren't usually the problem, unless of course you give up a half dozen of them. We may be in trouble because it seemed like the offense gave their effort and they're happy with their effort.

Left-handed and breathing is correct. I keep suggesting that the ghost of Jamie Moyer could still get through this lineup once to twice a la Big Sexy when he was with the Twins.

Seems like I remember seeing this thread before. The year was 2022 and we were discussing all of this OF depth. We had Buxton, Kepler, Kirilloff, Wallner, Larnach, Cave, Garlick, Nick Gordon, and Celestino. By September 2nd, our outfield was wiped out with injuries and our starting outfielders consisted of Jake Cave, Celestino, and Kepler. Agree with previous posters to pump the brakes at least until we are closer to the trade deadline so see if we are even in contention to make the upgrades. I would also push back on pooing the guy that will only give us 2-3 more wins. In a tangled AL wildcard where there are currently 9 teams within 6 games of each other, 2-3 more wins likely gets us a playoff spot.