TwinsCD

To be fair, that's how they pronounce dill in Mississippi.

EN FUEGO

So this is something that bugs me about plate approaches -- this guy has thrown 7 straight balls. Obviously, you take on 3-0. But why wouldn't you make him throw a 2nd strike instead of being aggressive? Correa swings at ball 4 and while Altuve makes a ridiculous play, it still should have been a bases loaded walk.

Look at it this way -- Vazquez popping out was a blessing because it wasn't a double play. We know he's not getting on base so as long as he doesn't take out 2 people, then that works.

Down 3-0 with 8 more times to bat...they've come back from worse.

The good -- MIRANDA (love how he's come back from what could have been a career-killing '23), Alcala being healthy and showing us what he's capable of, the much lower strikeout rate and better approaches at the plate since the 7-13 start, SWR showing that he's a very competitive 5th starter, Buxton playing as many games as he has, Castro's 1st half emergence, a different guy every night. The bad -- Wallner, Julien, and Kirilloff, Thielbar's loss of control, the continued confidence in Jay Jackson that is hopefully over now, Lopez not cementing himself as the ace of the staff (as in, 1 bad outing out of 4 or 5...his is more like 1 good outing out of 4 or 5 when we need 3 in that space), Varland's April. I think I'm most surprised that Cleveland has played as well as they have but I'm not in the camp of giving them the division right now. Twins still have a bunch of games with them and the Guards have just about used up their allotment against the Chisux. With having won the season series against Seattle and the opportunity to do that this weekend against Houston, winning the division could give the Twins a great shot at that 2 seed and the first-round bye. I really like how they seem to have built a 'stairway to heaven' of Alcala in the 7th, Jax in the 8th, and Duran in the 9th and I hope that will play similarly to how the Royals used theirs to win the World Series in '15 (yes, I still can't believe that happened). When Stewart returns after the ASB, he'll add another terrific element to that stairway and be a nice interchangeable part if someone in the big 3 needs a rest. I still have a very good feeling that I'll be cashing my Twins division winner and over 86 1/2 wins bets once we get to September 29.

Fourth of July is usually reserved for burgers and hot dogs. But today, we have Meatloaf!

We've got standing water on the warning track. Let's not fool anyone, call the dadgum game.

Bump x3

RELEASE THE KRAKEN, MOTHER NATURE!!

Don't rush it!!

Bump x2

They probably had the high-home camera operator find cover. This happened the last time they were at Target Field and they were coming out of a rain delay.

Miranda is just killing it since he came up.

Death by a thousand paper cuts

Bases loaded and Jeffers's plate discipline goes right out the window.

Bump

Well done, Jeffers!!

Perhaps if we'd just catch the ball instead of this framing BS, we'd be out of this inning.

You can't make that mistake on an 0-2 pitch. Geez, what is it with our guys leaving 2-strike pitches in the zone like that?

The Tigers really need to add a chef's hat to their pizza stake celly.

Our favorite umpire widening the zone against Kepler but at the same time, Kep's gotta spoil that pitch.

Good time for Slamtana to show up.

Considering how good Margot hits lefties, I'm surprised that he's not hitting here for Larnach. I spiked my soda tonight :eyeroll:

Did we just find our new Arraez?