IndianaTwin

That’s like the (probably apocryphal) story of Rick Sutcliffe giving up back-to-back homers in a visiting stadium that shot off fireworks after home team homers. When the pitching coach came out, Sutcliffe barked at him with something like, “You’re probably just going to tell me to throw strikes.” ”No,” the pitching coach said. “I just want to give the fireworks guy time to reload.”

First place, in the Wild Card Race, baby. Magic number is 148 to clinch at least a tie.

It’s great having a guy in center who can run like Hayes and hit like Mays.

Thankfully no one appears to be considering the White Sox.

My comment in that day's game thread was that I love watching Buxton hit a stand up double and end up on third base. Similarly I've long said that one reason he doesn't get a huge number of steals is that teams have to play deep so his singles often turn into doubles. My favorite was the one the other day where he beat out an infield single that was reversed on appeal, advanced to second on a sac fly, drew an errant pickoff throw at second to advance to third and then scored on another sac fly.

I used bWAR, which has him and Dozier flipped in 2017 and he and Cruz flipped in 2020. But whichever you use, it's pretty hard to argue that he has been anything but the Twins best position player over the time he's been up. It's not like he's only had two good seasons. And I wasn't trying to justify a position, but to provide a fuller picture of what he's done. I also wasn't suggesting the Twins owe Buxton anything, whether it's to extend him even further or to trade him to a team that increases the likelihood of making the playoffs.

Oh yeah, him too. 😀

And 2017. And the partial 2020 season. And missed by 0.1 in 2024.

Of note is that Buxton's 29.6 bWAR is currently behind only Carew (63.7), Killebrew (60.5), Puckett (51.1), Oliva (43.1), Hrbek (38.6), Knoblauch (38.0) and Allison (34.2) among Twins hitters (including Killebrew's and Allison's times as Senators). With three seasons left on his contract, if he averages even 4.0 per year, he'll pass Hrbek and be approaching Oliva. With three years like last year or even a single-year extension, he could easily pass Oliva as well. With the regular emphasis on "what might have been" with Buxton, it's easy to overlook what he has done.

Don't you just mean that the Argument for Moderation fallacy is good enough?

Power outage, schmower outage.

Prescient.

Right forearm contusion. X-rays negative. Edit: Either ninja’ed or getting a second opinion.

You’re saying attendance is less than 18,021?

Technical adjustment: Something must have happened with the radio feed. My MLB Audio is using the TV audio feed rather than the radio feed. Notice I said technical adjustment. It is not a technical problem. Provus & Morneau > Atteberry & Gladden

Footnotes in a Game Thread? What has this site come to? Next thing we know, there will be math.

But what did the cannibal that was late to the wedding feast get?

Top picture makes it look like he should be the guy nicknamed “Turtle.”

But yes, the baserunning mistakes were egregious. Bell’s was particularly damaging, in that the next guy hit a double, which would have scored Bell. Larnach’s bad jump/Gray’s running through a sign may not have cost them a run. It should have runners on second and third with one out, instead of bases empty with two outs. You can’t count on the same stuff happening, but if it had, Larnach would have scored on Clemens’ fly ball and Buxton would have made the third out of the inning. Buxton’s was just weird. The RF will often through towards third in that situation, but he threw behind Buxton instead. I don’t know whether he was doing this, but the third base coach should have been yelling/signally to stay on the bag at second. And the Wallner challenge on strike three was also costly. They are learning about challenges on the fly, but that one wasn’t even close and was by someone who usually has a good eye. .

There were off days Friday and again on Tuesday. If they don’t piggy back Abel and wait to start him on Wednesday, Ryan doesn’t go until Thursday and is pitching on SIX days rest, followed by Bradley, Ober and SWR on five days rest. Abel would be on seven days since his last spring training game if he waited until Wednesday. As it is, after SWR tomorrow, Ryan will go on Wednesday on five days rest, Bradley will be on four days rest on Thursday, either Ober or Abel will go on four days rest on Friday and the other on five on Saturday. SWR will go on five days on Sunday and then they will be on four days rest for a while, unless there are rainouts. Additionally, Ober hadn’t gone more than 4.1 innings during spring training, so there was a good chance they were not going to get more than five innings at most from him, the day after they’d used five relievers and the day before starting SWR, who doesn’t have a history of going long. Given how the game played out to that point, pulling him after he’d just given up three runs in a 22-pitch fourth was probably a good move And while Abel isn’t going to be a reliever long term, they had indeed pitched him in relief in his last spring training, apparently in preparation for this. I can agree with an argument that says based on the game situation, Abel should have been pulled while the damage was happening in the seventh, but I think the decision to piggyback them today made plenty of sense. And as it turns out, though this decision to piggyback appears to have been made a week or more ago, the weather forecast for Kansas City makes it an even better call. There’s a 95 percent chance of rain for both Wednesday and Thursday, with a high of 54 on Wednesday, when there is a night game. It sounds like there is a pretty good likelihood of one or perhaps even two rainouts. If they had not pitched Abel and held him until Wednesday, he already would have been pitching on something like seven days rest, with a pretty good chance he wouldn’t have gone until Thursday or even Friday on eight or nine days rest.

I’d add that the three singles which led to the run off of Brito included one solidly hit single up the middle and two grounders into the 5.5 hole that were only hits because Culpepper was playing up the middle. The last was a definitely a dribbler, so a tough luck run. His first inning was especially sharp, just 10 pitches.

It was definitely chilly, but fun to take in Opening Night. It was also fun to see a lineup topped by their Nos. 1, 7, 2 and 4 prospects, followed by five guys with MLB time. On the mound it was the No. 5 prospect starting, with excellent outings by Brito, Altavilla and Bowman. Given the reality of injuries, I suspect all four of the pitchers will get a call up. There is skepticism on the MLB bullpen, but they will be able to swap out guys pretty quickly as needed. Good seats were still available 20 minutes before game time (like, Row 4), making it a good spot to get some shots. Here’s Culpepper’s first AAA hit, a blooper in real life, but a line drive in the box score.

It is a great park. We have just under 3 hours, so I don’t get here as often as I’d like. Toledo is a little closer for me and also a great park, so I tend to go there a little more.

Good seats were still available 15 minutes before game time. I’m ready to step in as needed.

@ashbury, note how I said I'm "planning to go" as opposed "catching the game." 😀 I was trying to come up with a snappy comeback on the other comment, but my wit is apparently at the level of my catching.