Western SD Fan

IIRC from reading the injury update on Wallner, they wanted him to be able to complete two games in the field without any discomfort before activating him. Since the minors don't typically play on Monday, I would surmise that Wallner would be activated for Friday's game in Seattle. Buxton is travelling with the team so it's all when doctors clear him to play. Edit: I wish they would have taken that much care with Lewis before activating him.

To be clear, I've been on the Trade Paddack camp since the offseason. With that being said, Paddack has exceeded my expectations so far this season. One of my biggest issues with advanced metrics is that it almost becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Paddack is bound to have a clunker where he gives up 4-6 runs in less than 5 innings and then all the people quoting the advanced metrics will come out and scream that he is now regressing towards the mean whenever that clunker start arrives. The historic issue with Paddack has been that he throws too many pitches and can't get through 5 innings. This year he is averaging just under 5 1/3 innings pitched and hasn't thrown under 5 innings since April 6th, his second start. My ultimate question is who do you replace Paddack with at the moment? SWR: you just sent him down to St. Paul for being a worse version of Paddack. Zebby: he currently doesn't seem to be able to command his pitches effectively enough to get through 5 innings. Festa: he is coming back from arm fatigue, so I don't see him getting anymore run than Paddack for a while. Can all of this change by the deadline? Of course. But for now, we should enjoy riding with the Sheriff until the horse collapses and just be ready for that collapse with a contingency plan.

Lewis may be the case of the organization panicking and rushing him back too soon. When Lewis was activated off the IL (May 6th), the Twins were 15-20 and the season on the brink after the Cleveland series although some optimism was blossoming taking 2 of 3 from the Red Sox as the start of the thirteen-game winning streak. The excitement that Lewis was coming back even was the focus as a ticket-selling advertisement. Lewis's line while on rehab was: 23AB, 4H, 3R, 1 RBI, .174/.167/.384. His play in St. Paul while on rehab was clearly not ready for recall as we are seeing with a much more patient approach with Wallner with a similar hamstring strain as Lewis. As for Lewis not running 100%, how many years have we heard this conversation about Buxton about playing with reckless abandonment and eventually getting injured. Ultimately, the best ability on the field is availability. If Lewis cruises into second instead of stretching out for 3rd, that's fine. We have seen it with many players including Buxton and Correa do the same thing as the expectation is they can score from second on a sharp single. Earlier in the season we were praising Buxton for his resurgence as this was the first offseason that he had where he was not recovering or rehabbing from an injury. We haven't seen this from Lewis yet as it seems like he has always been recovering from an injury of some sort. Now that the Twins have turned their season around (for now of course), my hope for Lewis is that: 1) he can either figure it out on the Twins roster with possible extra days off since the roster has healed up to the point where he is not needed in the lineup every day just to make out a roster. Definitely moving farther down in the lineup (6-9) until he finds his stroke again, 2) he is placed back on the IL if there is something still lingering with him that he cannot gear up to 100%, 3) or, he is optioned back to St. Paul to work on his swing and timing similar to what we have seen with Larnach and Wallner with the expectation that he will be recalled when ready. Many of the best players in the game had to get sent back down at some point in their careers so hopefully Lewis would take this as a way to fix things out of the limelight.

Leadoff walks finally pay off for us!

This brings back memories of the Fernando Rodney Experience.

Hrbek would have also helped Witt Jr off the ground as well.

I don't have a problem with them advertising to sell tickets. My concern is that they may have sacrificed his rehab stint to sell tickets and Lewis and team are paying for it.

Now makes me want to go spread a bunch of plastic bags out into the wind.

This. You're right that he was not ready to come back from AAA. The season was teetering on the brink when he was brought back up. Someone in an earlier thread made the comment that bringing Lewis back at the speed they did was designed to try to sell tickets. You could go back and watch that as soon as he was recalled from St. Paul that they were advertising ticket sales saying "Royce is back!".

1/2 Credit on the call! Just Bader instead of a Vazquez GS.

Especially with Lewis. Before this stretch, his star burned so bright in between injuries that the expectations were probably set too high. Whereas you take Larnach, he had his ups and downs, sent back to the minors, corrected some things, and is looking more like a professional hitter every day. Since Lewis's star is so bright right now, it will be difficult to justify sending him down to St. Paul to work on mechanics.

I guess I should have driven to Minnesota today. I could have thrown that meatball to Salvy.

37 pitches in 4 innings. Wacha looking for a CG.

Drat! Bat needed to die a hero.

We were just setting up for the 9th. Clemens PH for Lee (who comes up 4th) and gets the walk-off hit!

Used to be that we would mock and ridicule players hitting at or below the Mendoza line. Now we dream of hitters trying to achieve that line.

This is the Rocco move I don't understand. Three pitches by Stewart and he's done. You try to give the benefit of the doubt that there is something we don't know such as hitting against Stewart's pitch mix as you try to navigate through batters. But it just seems like a waste to burn a pitcher with only three pitches thrown.

Many of these batters have wives and girlfriends, right? Seems like too many of these hitters are so nervous they can't even reach 2nd base.

I've said for awhile that Jamie Moyer could come out of retirement and still get two turns through the lineup with the way this Twins team attacks lefties.

Only 1.5 games behind Baltimore to get out of the AL Basement.

Update from across the river: Top 4 - Wallner 1 for 2, double, 3 RBI. Festa 3 /2/3, 1 ER, 2H, 1 BB, 7K only 54 pitches. Maybe on a pitch count with arm fatigue?

I was watching the Detroit game tonight, and they interviewed a fan from England tonight. Probably as close as you're going to get for now.

I would also suggest Jason Bartlett at SS. I know that most of his career was not with the Twins, and he wasn't drafted by the Twins. He was developed by the Twins and while not as highly touted at Royce Lewis seems to be a development success story. I also would have had a UTIL category as well and seen who we could have put into that spot.

It appears that we are having two separate conversations in one thread. First conversation is whether France is meeting expectations. I'll say it again that, when you consider everything involved (salary, where he was supposed to hit in the lineup, defense, and internal options), he is probably meeting expectations. The second conversation is whether we should be accepting these expectations. Unfortunately, as a Twins fan, these are typically the conversations we get to have since we are not spending or trading to get better at the position. Checking Sportrac, I was actually surprised that the adjusted payroll is up to a tick more than $146 million, which is about $10 million more than I was expecting for some reason at this point in the season. Even listening to Skor North today, they were surmising on who gets DFA'd as players come back from the IL and France was not mentioned. Although, I would say that many of the commenters on this thread have made the case that he should be in the DFA conversation, and I agree with that as we currently have Clemens, Bride, and Castro that can play 1B provided they can still produce at a similar level until Buxton and Wallner come back. They sent Fitzgerald back down so my anticipation is that we should see Correa tomorrow. My suspicion on why they will hold onto France longer than they probably should (see Gallo, Margot) and because internal replacements in the minors either need to be added to the 40-man (Ford) or only have one option left (Julien and Miranda). If you still have hope for those players, you can't burn their option until you're convinced that they can stick. For what it's worth, Miranda is playing 1B at St. Paul tonight so maybe they are working a path for him back to the ML club.

This was the opening day lineup when everyone was healthy (except Lewis of course). If you consider subbing Lewis in for Miranda and moving him into the 4 or 5 spot. France is meeting expectations for the contract he signed and where he was expected to hit in the lineup: the 6 or 7 spot.