Western SD Fan

Kody! Kody! He's our man! If he can't do it, maybe go talk to your dad about some "supplements".

Orze plunking the batter likely saved a run that would have scored on a wild pitch.

Somebody just reported today that Sands was shut down again. I know he's not a starter, but was some hope for the bullpen.

And he didn't stop running so he is in scoring position!

The A's hit 7 home runs last night and still lost.

Taj did negotiate the terrible defense nicely. Should have been out of the inning a number of pitches ago. But Taj is not Joe Ryan and will break eventually with defense like that behind him.

Alright Taj. I know the Tigers have a tall lineup, but they don't have Paul Bunyan. You can keep the ball closer to the earth.

I'm sure that is league average just like it was league average to score between 2-3 runs with the bases loaded and nobody out. With the Twins, the disclaimer always is "Results May Vary".

That was a shaky route by Larnach. I'm just glad it didn't go out because that is what it looked like off the bat.

Right on cue.

They were saying tomorrow should be a full stadium since it is a rehab start for Verlander.

Escobar's all-star season happened in 2021. Three years AFTER he was traded to the Diamondbacks. That is an important distinction if you are assessing the value of the trade at the time the trade was made. I will make it clear that I think Escobar's season was better than Clemens is having this year. I was noted that trade as the very high end of the value that we could get from Clemens, although your assessment of a lower lever flyer is likely more accurate.

The top end of any trade possibility for Clemens would be the Eduardo Esobar trade that brought back Jhoan Duran from the Diamondbacks. Escobar was having a career year with the Twins prior to the trade, similar to what Clemens is doing now. The baseball reference comparison, shown below, still tracks 2026 Clemens trending towards half the WAR that Escobar did in 2017 and Escobar had similar positional flexibility as Clemens. We got to see what Duran turned into. We need to remember at the time that Duran was a high upside guy but wild with his power stuff. He was only the 16th rated prospect in the Diamondbacks organization at the time of the trade. If he was traded, that comp is likely the very top end of what you could expect in a return, a prospect no higher than 15th in an organization, depending on the quality of the farm system. There is still a lot of season to be played to determine whether Clemens will have a job at the end of the season. In a perfect world, Lewis and Keaschall nail down the right side of the infield so Clemens is reduced to more of a platoon role. Same would be said for the outfield if one of Jenkins, E-Rod, or Roden come off the IL and tear the ball off and is called up to the ML club thus reducing another path for playing time for Clemens by the end of the season. Everyone wants the youth movement. If you embrace the youth movement, then trading Clemens during a career year is the smart thing to do.

But you really can't leave them in AAA. Take the current situation for the Twins. I think all of us would agree that having Morris, Adams, and Klein, when he was up here, is an improvement over Garcia and Topa. These are the guys, that prior to being called up, were doing the bulk pitching in AAA where they likely still belong. Although they would be better served in AAA, we need them on the ML club because they are the best we currently have and will currently get. Hopefully when pitchers come back from injury, we can reassess and give these guys some more seasoning in St Paul, especially now that they know what they need to do to be successful at the ML level.

The question trying to get answered here is what to do when a team does not have enough capable pitching for a five-man rotation, or in Prielipp's case, a need to shut him down or limit his innings. People criticizing the idea of load managing Prielipp seem to forget that even Stephen Strasburg was shut down for the playoffs in 2012 when coming back from Tommy John surgery. A more serious problem is what to do with a group of pitchers that aren't good enough to get through a ML lineup more than once AND don't have a good enough repertoire to get ML batters out in a high leverage bullpen role. The days of players like Oliver Perez or Terry Mulholland, which were capable of giving you 1-2 innings or 5-6 innings depending on what your team needed, are gone. Bullpen specialization has cut the swingman out of the bullpen with the closest currently in the majors being Sean Manaea. The final issue is from a team standpoint. If one of these bulk pitchers gets shelled in a game, do you leave him out there to die or do you ruin your bullpen for a week to try to get through the game. If you are going to have a member of your bullpen down for three days, the rest of your bullpen better be good in order to cover that shortcoming. The Twins do not have that bullpen. The bullpen, by ERA, is the worst in baseball. The Twins have to do something now because they don't have the capable pitchers left to fill out a rotation. I certainly wouldn't want to call an emergency a lifestyle choice and that is what this idea is ultimately suggesting.

I think you could copy and paste this for many of the current inexperienced pitchers on the staff. Morris, Adams, Paredes, and even Prielipp would fit this definition. Some, or all of them, should likely be sent back down to St Paul when Abel, Sands, and Ober are ready to come off of the IL. These pitchers eventually being sent back down doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't do a good job. It is more of a just a learning curve that will need to be addressed before coming back up and hopefully be the pitcher that they had expected. I am in the optimist camp with these pitchers although it doesn't look good now. I would rather have these guys up and in the bullpen than when the next Luis Garia pops up on the waiver wire.

We will likely have to wait for the pregame show to hear anything on Buxton. I fear the worst where he will need an IL stint and are just waiting to make that move when they go on the road. Cameron did shut them down early in the season. I also think since we have not been facing LHP every other day, like we did earlier in the season, we are back to the old Twins facing a LHP. The ghost of Jamie Moyer could still get 4 innings and twice through the batting order.

It became clear that Outman had lost all confidence in Shelton. That was made clear by having Clemens attempt to play CF in recent games. The open 40-man spot could be for a pitcher that needs to be signed. As mentioned in other threads, it is not likely that a decision on Buxton will be made until the travel day on Monday and won't be made official until Tuesday. This extra 40-man roster spot allows them to put Buxton on the IL and promote someone such as Fedko to take the 40-man spot without having to send anyone down or DFA anybody. Culpepper likely stays down until either 1) Kreidler, Arcia, or Gray are so bad that they need to be off the roster, or 2) they get Keaschall and Lewis back up to scratch before introducing another player into the mix. As for Lewis, I had hoped for another few games under his belt at the new positions prior to getting the call back up the majors. If you factor in the reports that Lewis worked with Morneau yesterday at first base, it may have come down to his assessment of Lewis's play at 1st that made the final decision to bring him back up. Lewis's assessment at second base today was ok but will still need work. He made one nice play and botched a throw on a double play ball allowing the runner to go to second. Not all that uncommon from a second basemen. It does show that he is unsure about his footwork and that additional reps will be needed. As someone else has suggested, it may give them the clearance to move Keaschall back down to St Paul for a mini reset if Lewis can prove he can hold the position at the major league level.

I would agree that it is hard and that they are trying. This is more of a baseball philosophy issue on why no one does situational hitting anymore, except Kyle Isbel it seems. Two strike situational hitting used to be practiced and preached. There's a reason that players like Salvador Perez, Miguel Cabrera, or most of the Guardian batters (at least against the Twins) seem to be able to get the ball to the bat and put it in play. They took what the pitcher was giving them. They still may have been out, but you could see that they were attempting to put the ball in play instead of trying to hit the walk off home run.

Lewis striking out is lower on the list of things I'm upset about on why the Twins lost. 1. Orze should have thrown to first for the easy out of Rojas. Witt doesn't come up to bat if Orze does his job. 2. Shelton should have walked Witt if it he had to come to plate. I understand Pasquantino was having a decent day, but he is not their best player, take the bat out of their best player and make someone else beat you. 3. Bell and Martin strike out and not even attempt to move the runner over. If they take a different approach at the plate, they could have been able to get Clemens in from 2nd. 4. Only here I may give Royce some blame for his strikeout. The pitcher did a good job making Royce lean out over the plate with his pitch sequencing. Balls on the outside part of the plate has been a Royce problem for a long time so getting him cognizant of that and then throwing a front door cutter is just good pitching. The best hitters will foul it off. Royce is not one of the best hitters.

My mistake. Laweryson currently warming up.

Adams is the freshest arm left in the pen. Next up would likely be Gomez. Hopefully it doesn't get that far.

Dangerous challenge. Never know if you will need it in the bottom of the 9th.

On a related note, the Saints go on the road next week to Toledo so they shouldn't have to take anyone on their taxi squad to Detroit.

Hard to say, especially with the 1:10 start tomorrow. Pretty safe to say he likely isn't playing tomorrow regardless. I hope they act quickly, whatever they decide to do. I could also see them try to wait out Buxton through the weekend and see if he improves before their day off and travel to Detroit.