Western SD Fan

Here's hoping the lineup can get to Gausman early. The Jays went through 6 of their 9 relievers yesterday with only one throwing under 20 pitches so they may be a little thin in the bullpen.

We trashed on Larnach because he couldn't play the outfield in Tampa. We are trashing on Wallner because he can't play the outfield. If you want both of their bats in the lineup, one of them HAS to play in the outfield. I believe Wallner still grades out as the better defender, but I don't have the numbers to back it up. I'll be the Wallner apologist for now. Regarding his defense, I think we have been blessed to have Kepler out in RF all those years. I hear on the telecast all the time on how tricky that RF wall can be with the limestone, the seats jutting out above the wall, and the odd angles. This is the first year for Wallner in RF vs Kepler who played his entire Twins career mainly manning RF. I have to accept a mistake or two if I want his bat in the lineup. I also find it interesting that in one thread, some of us were advocating for Lewis to get sent down to AAA aka the "Wallner method" to improve and come back and smash, but on this thread, trashing that Wallner spent too much time in AAA in 2024. Finally, we have seen this Nickelodeon Melodrama before. I keenly remember we had a similar argument between Rooker and Larnach with Wallner in the wings a few years back. Neither Rooker or Larnach could be trusted in the outfield, and you couldn't keep them both in the lineup. Twins ended up trading Rooker and we know the rest of the story. If you've reached the point that you can't trust Wallner in the outfield, pick one to trade and move on. I think we just have to be a little more patient on Wallner's defense as he comes back from the IL as hard as it may look at times.

Buxton needs to get to second so France can pay attention to his AB. His AB's are better with RISP.

I believe his name was Dick Trickle and he did race. Trickle was that shallow hit that just scored two for the Jays.

Ober is susceptible to the long ball. Just need to have clean bases when he inevitably gives one up.

No Correa seems to make the lineup thin very fast. Also surprised to not see Castro in the lineup tonight as well.

I would assume that Adams will be initially used as a mop-up guy or in a long-term pitching situation (2+ innings). If he doesn't implode, he will get better opportunities in the bullpen. Similar to what we have seen prior with Sands and Varland. I would love to see Adams in the situation of maybe being up or down a run or two but needing to effectively pitch multiple innings. A question will be what his recovery time after each outing. A dream would be to break up Zebby and Festa so they are not pitching on back-to-back days.

Missed an opportunity to suggest an underground bunker for the family to escape, without you in it, as a possible safety precaution.

This game was just set up to be a bad one before the first pitch was thrown. Festa seemed rushed out west to pitch on a getaway day game of a ten-game road trip. As Rocco confirmed in his postgame interview, Festa was also on a pitch count since he is still coming back from arm fatigue that he suffered while in St. Paul. Correa was out again, and I was even surprised that Buxton played today, although he was taken out early. Now we get to see how the Twins will line up the bullpen. Coulombe is expected to start a rehab assignment tomorrow. It doesn't seem like they would just have two pitchers down for multiple days in the pen. I believe Patsky said in another thread that our old friend Blewett was just DFA'd by the Braves. Funderburk has looked better, but I assume he will be replaced by Coulombe when he's ready. This may be the ending of the Alcala project in Minnesota. I had hoped he would turn a corner and there's definitely room to blame on the way he's been used in the bullpen for his troubles. In the end though, you have to have people that are capable of getting outs in a game and it doesn't look like he is it at the moment.

Our old friend may become our new friend. Blewett was typically good in situations like this. Multiple inning mop-up work that limited the damage. I have a feeling we are going to need someone like him in the future.

Disappointing for Alcala as I thought he may have turned a corner with his earlier outing in the series. He may end up being the casualty when Coulombe comes back as it would be nice to have two lefties in the bullpen.

Now the real question sets in on the Twins needing to find another reliever for the weekend. I can't imagine they would go two relievers short for multiple days. Fundy would be the likely option since he has options. Per MLB, I see that Coulombe will start a rehab appearance in St. Paul tomorrow. It will be curious if they go short-handed tomorrow with the chance to bring back Coulombe over the weekend.

At least there's signs of life in the out-of-town scoreboard, Detroit and KC have both lost already with KC having to play another game tonight.

I was curious on how early a position player could come in to pitch. I guess it's the seventh inning. Good thing I tuned in late for this.

I've been pleasantly surprised with management and ownership considering we were discussing in the offseason that they would need to trade Paddack, Castro, or some combination of players to get under the perceived payroll cap. With that being said, I just don't see ownership spending much more unless we have another month like we did in May, and we start looking like a true AL contender (deep playoff run). This is not a blame ownership comment, more of a sometimes you have to leave the dance with the girl you came with comment.

We still have another month of games for teams to determine whether they are going to buy or sell at the trade deadline so this exercise may be a tad bit early. For France at 1B, given his current and career effectiveness with RISP, if you place him 5-7th in the batting order, he will be fine as there is not a clear-cut upgrade on the market and he should hopefully get ample opportunities to drive runs in. For 3B, as previous commenters have surmised, you need to essentially give up on Lewis and/or Lee to trade for an upgrade. This is why I've been hounding for Lewis to be sent to AAA to work on his swing, posture, etc. to become the hitter we need him to be and re-evaluate in two weeks to a month. The team has made it clear that they want Lewis to work it out on the ML club, so he needs to play until the team changes its approach to how they are handling Lewis. I'm going to pump the brakes on a Keaschall return and resurgence. He's likely an upgrade over Bride and even Clemens, but we still need to be patient on a young player with an upper arm bone injury. I believe effectively swinging the bat will be the last thing that comes back from this type of injury. It may turn out that he's only a nominally better version of Keirsey Jr as he re-establishes his swing. I hope I'm wrong, but you have to evaluate these things as they will not be 100% ready to go when they come back from injury and are they an improvement over who we currently have.

In 2025, no way on earth would I trade Duran. We need him in a bullpen that is likely going to get used a bit more in the next few months. As for the future, he still has two arbitration years left after 2025. The best comp for Duran in terms of what we have seen before would be a "poor man's" Josh Hader. I use that term because Duran has not been used in the same way Hader was, and he does not have the same national coverage that Hader did at similar times in their respective careers. With that being said, let's look at what the Brewers traded Hader for 2022 as a potential haul for the Twins. For reference, in 2022, Hader still had 1 year of arbitration left, where Duran will be AFTER the 2026 season Padres: Josh Hader Brewers: Taylor Rogers RP (our old friend), Dinelson Lamet (pitcher, now in the Mexican League) and OF Esteury Ruiz (currently in the Dodgers system at AAA-OKC) This is not exactly a cornucopia of riches for a high-profile hurler that arguably had more value at the time of the trade than a potential Duran trade currently does due to Hader's track record and national recognition. You're just not going to get someone who will be an upgrade to who we currently have on the roster as expected everyday players.

The series with the Blue Jays always concerns me. It seems the entire city of Winnipeg travels down to the TC for the series and it's about 1/2 Blue Jays and 1/2 Twins fans. Maybe that explains why Festa is pitching today instead of on Friday as now we have our best (remaining) pitchers going for the Toronto series.

Another great win, especially keeping the A's bats in check. I think the Pablo injury shuts the door on the Paddack discussion pending a collapse before the deadline. I also have a feeling this community will also be even more hyper-sensitive of Rocco's bullpen usage as we are going to need every out we can get from the starters as I would expect the length of the starters will go down. It's looking like the team is learning the lessons from Lewis in how they are treating Wallner. With Wallner, they waited until it looked like he was ready (beyond ready for some people) and are willing to give him days off as he was just activated from the IL on Saturday. Finally, we need to ride the Bader train into the ground as he is still hitting out of his skis for the year, even if that means costing Wallner or Larnach an at-bat or two once in awhile.

I was dreaming of a couple more runs so this lead could possibly have been Fundy-proof.

Didn't someone call for some insurance around here? Did the State Farm guy show up yet?

Stewart is the answer. Hopefully the answer will actually be the solution.

Had Springs started the game, he would have already had a quality start.

One thing I have seen an improvement in Lewis is that he is taking more walks. That shows me that he is at least seeing the ball and that he doesn't feel like he has to wear the superhero cape all the time.

Especially since Pablo will be out for so long. We need to stretch every out we could get from our starters to save the bullpen, Zebby at least needed an opportunity to get through the sixth.