mikelink45

This is the last place world series and we are serious - 6 pitchers in a 9 inning game - try to keep that going. Love what Keaschall has contributed and hope it keeps going. But to have all those base runners stranded in the first few inning is not a good sign.

Since I was an usher in year one and have followed them since day one I can say this team has really pushed me to the brink. Luckily I have a job that has me traveling half the year so I have other distractions, but in the past I had Killebrew, Oliva, Kaat, Carew, Bostock, Viola, Hrbek, Blyleven, Gaetti, Puckett, Pascual, Tovar, and Mauer and Morneau who gave me joy win or not. Then there was the "I love that kid" Wynegar and other players who made me want to be at the game. I loved it when we had Mudcat and I wanted to see Vic Power with defense and energy at 1B. But now this team has no one who moves me to be excited. Buxton is too injured or too erratic. Correa has shown why other teams worried about his health. Julien had a flash in the pan year, but I really miss Arraez. No energy, no special qualities (I almost used a French phrase there) and if they are blasé' why should I get excited? Put that into context with all the elements that Nick described plus contraction and the buzz I got attending all the 1991 WS games is hard to sustain. I had hoped that Lewis would be that great and joyful player, but an injury list longer than his stat summary diminishes that potential.

I was never excited by him but the only reason to cut him is if we have someone to replace him. The cupboard seems quite bare.

When a team is desperate it is time to take a chance - give McCusker a chance.

This is about wholesale change - not tweaks - as Fire Dan Gladden says, we need this team to be sold. Pohlads are not going to regain any favorable relationships with Twins - that slide began with the old retraction effort to eliminate the team years ago. They were not committed to the team or fans then and they have not improved over the years. A new owner will have that honeymoon period where they can tell us that things will change and we will want to believe them. Prospects are always promising until they prove us otherwise. Maybe it will be different this time - we keep telling ourselves. But are we sure that the leadership team can bring them up and help with the transition to MLB? Past performance does not seem to indicate it. But for the fans sake we need Emma, Walker, Matthews, Festa, Morris, and Keaschall to be the real thing. We keep seeing other teams bringing up really young players and have them prosper. We need that. The hitting and pitching coaches are easy targets and we keep changing them with the same results so maybe it is time to look at the other management members and ask what they are doing. Can TD examine all the coaches and not just their functions, but their success?

We won! But looking at their lineup it is hard to see how you could lose. Duran looked like he would lose it. That would have been a disaster.

It will be fascinating to see if the three bottom teams can fascinate the fans enough to get them out. At least there's a chance we'll win.

I have no solution, but like me most season ticket holders are not in the demographic this articles addresses and I am fearful of the sports future as it moved down the spectrum - Vikings, Timberwolves, Lynx, Wild, United and fishing, hunting, lake cabins, boating, concerts, picnics. Not sure where to put the Twins. I know that driving 100 miles to a game with the team playing lousy is not motivating - especially when the concessions and parking eat up more money. I am not even motivated to listen on the radio anymore. I just catch the 10 minute MLB.com summary which in this season is too long.

If the article is about drawing a younger generation it is not through season ticket packages - it is about marketing young stars - giving the team an identity the youth can get connected to like Ant on the Timberwolves. The games have sped up which is good, but the Twins forgot the play exciting ball part of the equation.

Bullpen Usage Chart: WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Jax 22 0 26 0 0 48 Varland 19 0 18 0 6 43 Topa 0 0 17 24 0 41

Twins Video Ad ends in 1 Box Score: Starting Pitcher: Joe Ryan: 5 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, 5 K (93 Pitches, 65 Strikes, 69.9%) Home Runs: Byron Buxton (4) Bottom 3 WPA: Ryan (-.286), Edouard Julien (-.097), Brooks Lee (-.093) Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs): The Twins wrapped up their series in Atlanta today after gifting the Braves two winnable games and awakening the perennial contender from its early season doldrums. Joe Ryan got the start for Minnesota, coming off an outing against the Mets in which he labored but gave the Twins five strong innings. As a California "Deadhead" laboring isn't Ryan's favorite vibe. Teams know that when the righthander is healthy and throwing well, the only way to counter him is to work long at-bats and hope to wear Ryan down, with a solo home run or two thrown in. Unfortunately for Ryan today, the home plate umpire called two clear strikes as balls to second place hitter Austin Riley, extending Ryan's pitch count and turning what looked like a quick inning, into a much longer affair. The horrid Marcell Ozuna worked a walk and Matt Olson finally caught up with a mistake fastball and rocketed a two-run home run to give the Braves a 2-0 lead. Ryan threw 32 pitches in the frame. That could have been workable except the Twins anemic offense offered no early fight against Braves journeyman starter Kenny Powers Grant Holmes. Following the long inning for Ryan, the Twins went down in order on eight pitches, forcing Ryan back out with hardly a chance to sit down. He retired the first two hitters of the second fairly easily, but then a barrage of singles scored a third run. The third was similar- after two outs, Michael Harris turned on a hanging splitter and roped it for a double, and then the highly touted rookie Drake Baldwin pounced on a 92 MPH fastball not quite high enough in the zone, and pummeled it the other way for a two-run home run. The Twins at least made Holmes work in the fourth. After Trevor Larnach ripped a one out single, so did Carlos Correa. Ryan Jeffers was hit by a pitch on his wrist and stayed in the game. After Luke Keaschall popped out, Holmes spiked a slider that Baldwin couldn't handle, allowing Larnach to score the first Twins run. Brooks Lee made good contact in his at-bat, but Harris tracked down the liner in the gap to record the final out. As expected, a rejuvenated Ryan then had his easiest inning, setting down the Braves 1-2-3. Holmes continued to struggle with his command, walking the free-swinging Harrison Bader to lead off the fifth before leaving a cutter up for Buxton to lace into the gap for a double. Holmes then walked Ty France, perhaps equal to Bader in free-swingedness, to load the bases. But Larnach struck out looking on the juiciest pitch of the at-bat, a fastball middle-in, and Correa tapped out to get Holmes off the hook. Ozuna, sadly still not incarcerated, jumped on an inside sinker from Ryan and delivered it into the left field bleachers. The Twins put two more runners on in the sixth, but Julien tapped out to strand the Twins' eighth runner in a span of three innings. Buxton did launch a no-doubt home run in the seventh to continue his strong stretch of games. Louis Varland, Jhoan Duran and Danny Coulombe pitched scoreless innings. All three are having nice years, at least. Trends: Healthy Hurt Performing Contributing Low Impact/Slumping IL/Minors C Ryan Jeffers Christian Vazquez 1B Ty France 2B Mickey Gasper ? Brooks Lee Edouard Julien 3B Royce Lewis Jose Miranda Jonah Bride SS Carlos Correa ? LF Trevor Larnach CF Byron Buxton ? Harrison Bader DaShawn Keirsey Jr. RF Matt Wallner UTIL Willi Castro ? Luke Keaschall ? SP1 Pablo Lopez Bailey Ober ? Joe Ryan SP2 Chris Paddack Simeon Woods Richardson CR Jhoan Duran ? Griffin Jax ? SR Brock Stewart Louis Varland ? Cole Sands MR Danny Coloumbe Justin Topa Michael Tonkin LR Randy Dobnak Jorge Alcala Kody Funderburk What’s Next: Bailey Ober (1-1, 6.16 ERA) takes on Davis Martin (1-2, 4.84 ERA) as the Twins open a series at Target Field against the White Sox. Martin has been functional thus, far, but his peripheral numbers are rough. Ober has been pretty good since his opening clunker in St. Louis and will look to continue to have success against a White Sox lineup against whom statistics do count. Bullpen Usage Chart: WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Jax 22 0 26 0 0 48 Varland 19 0 18 0 6 43 Topa 0 0 17 24 0 41

Are we making Raya a RP? Because SP go more innings! Bring up McCusker - put Keaschall at 2B and McCusker at DH

I have stated this before, but it summarizes my feelings about the Pohlads - How can such super rich people not understand public relations? Do they think there is sympathy for the rich when they make bad decisions? Do we care that you might only get 1.5 billion instead of 1.7? Come on Pohlads, try to read TD and get an idea of how fans think and feel.

Sometimes a new voice leads to systematic change and if the players believe in it the results can really be good. But if it is just an internal option I don't expect much to improve. I don't like Rocco getting in a rut like the Margot pinch hitting or the short leash on SP, but I am not looking at him as a villain. Bleacher reports has this interesting insight - "Since 1987, there have been 81 midseason managerial changes, one of which was in 1996 when Tommy Lasorda retired as Dodger manager after suffering a heart attack. Of those 80 changes due to firings, only 19 teams played better than . 500 baseball after the change was made, some just barely." Of course it is usually a bad team that changes managers so it is a really hard measurement. "Prior to 1987, there were 183 midseason changes (those not including the first or last 20 games of a season), with about 24 percent improving to a plus .500 team after the change." In a research paper by Beth Talentowski, '10 Illinois Wesleyan University the conclusions include this statement - "It would also be beneficial to look at other factors that influence team performance. Initially a third model was under consideration to assess which variable has the greatest impact on winning percentage. The additional variables under consideration are variables that are out of the manager‘s control yet are vital aspects of a sporting organization, such as salary cap, draft picks, slugging percentage, etc. The human capital theory suggests that proper use of inputs is enough for success, but what if the inputs are sub par?" Sometimes there are other factors that must be included like the owner and the Front Office, but that is beyond this essays parameters. However, the message to the players and the fans is that the team is at least looking for a change. And MLB is not the only place this solution is tried - look at this years NBA, the NFL, and even college sports. But the trouble is that we can analyze bat speed, ball spin and lots of other minutia, but we cannot measure leadership. Casey Stengel was a genius with the Yankees, not so much with the Mets. I look forward to another article where we analyze the entire system including those nameless analytic savants and that ever present Quality Control Coach.

Not only has Topa never started - he had pitched the day before. I still think this was a really bad decision.

The reflection on team play is also a reflection on the management - all the coaches. When I asked how many coaches the Twins have good old Google AI says, " The Minnesota Twins have 12 major league coaches for the 2025 season. This includes the manager, 3 hitting coaches, a bench coach, a third base/outfield coach, a first base/infield coach, an assistant bench coach/catching coach, a quality control coach, a pitching coach, an assistant pitching coach, and a bullpen coach. " While I am not a fan of Rocco I have seen a lot of lousy coaches (I think of Fred Haney and the 1957 - 58 Milwaukee Braves) who still win. And they did not have bench coaches assistant to the assistant hitting coaches, OF coaches, IF coaches, assistant pitching coaches and QUALITY CONTROL COACHES. What do this coaches do? Please do not replace Rocco with one of them. What is the Quality that is being controlled? Who is doing all the stat analysis? Does the pitching coach ever say - let's give him another inning or two (or maybe his assistant does)? So glad we keep getting new hitting coaches - wow three of them. And thanks to their combined efforts our line for the team (B/R) 211/282/338 621 OPS 16 HRs - so each one is responsible for .070 of BA and 207 OPS Looking at BR team stats we have lowest field average since 1981 - guess those OF/IF coaches are earning their money too. At least the bench hasn't collapsed so I guess the Bench Coach is holding his own.

Its too bad such a depressing report is so accurate. Your poll - who is more clutch is like a sad joke at the end of this summary. The real answer is - nobody. Yes it is already time to think about trades. The Sox and Angels must be looking at next week with some glee. Yes - it is imperative we come out with a winning week so this review can have a positive off week.

I got to believe the White Sox are looking forward to this series - they could get out of last place. Let's get some playoff excitement going - we will not slide to last!

Oh man, does this hurt. How about a six man rotation and get Zebby up - maybe a seven and get Morris up too. Don't hurry with the post game interview - who cares? Julien's hot streak is over. Keaschall - thank you, no matter what else the season gives us you have provided a spark - not to the team, but to the fans. The only player hitting over 250 - Bader is at 250 and the rest - I guess its Buxton's turn to be hot and look like an all-star now that Eddie is done. And I look at these three relievers who did their job and wonder why Topa who has never started would be the opener when Varland knows how to start? Oh well, that was yesterday's misery.

When Wallner, Lewis, Castro are back with health this story will disappear as will the two cast-offs. Desperate times for our struggling team.

I am not a fan of the opener. I really don't see how it makes it better. The starter isn't used to coming in and the second inning and the relief picture isn't used to coming in in the first.

The question arises again could the starter go further and depend less on the BP

I put 75% of the blame on owners, 10% FO, 10% Baldelli - 5% on players, but they are who they have always been and if they are not good enough that is not their fault. The smartest thing they have done is bring up Keaschall - some excitement factor. The next best thing is Zebby because he has caught the fans imagination.

This is the first time I have been excited by a Twins move this season. I hope they let him play through struggles and give him the support he needs. I just have not been impressed with the Twins handling of prospects so far.

I love it. This is my most exciting moment of this season. Now give him a number of starts so he can settle in and start making a difference.