TwinsCD

WHEW....THANK GOD WE HAVE A FAST OUTFIELD!!

Carly Rae is doing his best to give up his closer job.

We're just now coming to this conclusion? You could have written this article in May...of LAST year. That 6-0 start was more smoke & mirrors than Copperfield and Houdini. He's terrible and is better off on the scrap heap.

Boyer's in the game and looking his crappy self. Guess I can go back to work now.

Excellent plate discipline out of Rosario there (nom nom nom)

Awesome pitching performance tonight. That's EXACTLY what we need to see from our starters. Thank God Plouffe got that big hit because I was about to toss a pillow if they'd have left the bases loaded in that situation. Finish the job tomorrow and keep this momentum train moving.

Holy crap, you're not kidding. While Angel Hernandez is my #1 to dislike, Bucknor is right up there probably in the 2 spot. Speaking from an umpire's perspective (11 years doing HS), you should not be missing pitches over the batter's inside corner because you're standing right there. CB missed at least 3 by my count last night. The backdoor curve was mentioned by someone on this thread and he was grossly inconsistent with that pitch. One inning it was rightfully called a ball and the next inning, the same location made it a strike. When Duffey was struggling, Suzuki was on the inside part of the plate and the pitch ended up on the outside corner. But because bad umpires watch catchers' gloves rather than the pitch, they don't call that pitch a strike, even though it catches the plate. Bucknor is horrible all over the diamond and I wouldn't be surprised to see him be the subject of at least 2 replay reviews over the next 2 games.

Observations from the game (I watch on a computer that isn't good at streaming video and getting on TD at same time): --How does a pitcher lose a strike zone as quickly as Duffey did? That was scary bad. Would love to hear or see his quotes about that outing. Kid looked like a world beater to start out and then looked like a Red Land pitcher from Saturday at the end of the outing. --Speaking of losing the strike zone, CB Bucknor, go home you're drunk. He is 2nd on my list of umpires that have no business being above me in priority of doing a MLB game (Angel Hernandez is #1). What's funny is he was bad for both teams and I'm shocked that Molitor didn't get after CB when Plouffe yapped back at after the K. The guy is terrible and needs to go find a tee-ball game to go screw up. --Agree with the above comment about pitching to Sano like that. The way you get him out is work him down and away. If you leave it up with no velocity, you might as well fish it out of the upper deck. A fellow Twins friend of mine and I have come to call him The Beast. He never gets cheated on his dingers. --Perkins still has the closer disease. Still don't feel comfortable when he's out there. Big brain fart not getting over on that ball to Mauer. --Amazing resiliency by these guys to keep after it and light up Duke in the 8th as well as taking advantage of the Sux treating the ball like it's a hand grenade. --Great (albeit stressful and frustrating) start to this series. Easier to win 2 of 3 when you get the first one. Sux don't have much success against Milone so hopefully we can get game 2 tomorrow night.

2 out of 3 is the absolute minimum to win in this series. Gotta keep the heat on Texas. At this point, the goals are the same -- win your games and root against the team that you're chasing. Pointless to worry about the Angels or the Rays or anyone else because if they catch the Twins, that means the Twins are losing and if the Twins are losing, they're not going anywhere.

As much as I hate to say it, we're better off playing the Yanks. Remember, they had leads in every single game in Yankee Stadium in this last series, only to find new and improved ways to give it away. When they played the Jays in Toronto post-trade deadline, they were never in any of those games. For one game, I'd rather take my chances against the Yanks and maybe exorcise those ugly playoff demons.

Hmmmm, that's interesting. Never seen an in-game interview with a pitcher who was still technically in the game. Don't have the volume up since I'm at work but he looked like he had some pressure lifted off his shoulders.

*stands and applauds Santana* MUCH better, Ervin. Thank you.

CBU from the small frys (or is it fries?): USA 10, Japan 9, bottom 2 at Little League WS. US put 10-spot up in 1st, Japan came back with 7 in the 2nd. Shouldn't Altuve be playing in THAT game??

This was what I was concerned with when they decided to bring him up. Other than his speed, he really hasn't shown anything at the plate. He looks lost back there on pitch recognition. It's reminding me too much of what Hicks was when he first started. However, I love the way Bux has played center field. It feels like every time a ball is hit to center, he's going to get it. I'm hoping the bat catches up to his fielding ability.

THAT'S the kind of starting pitching I was hoping for. Yeah, it took Gibson 110+ pitches to only get thru 5 2/3 innings but nothing crossed the plate. Really needed that one. Interesting how Molitor set up the 7th-9th innings with the relievers. Given the number of pitches, I wouldn't expect to see Jepsen tomorrow. Maybe we can get a blowout and it won't be necessary.

For me, it's a day-by-day thing. Today, the Rangers are above the Twins. I root against the Rangers. Tomorrow, when the Twins are back in the WC2 spot, you root against whoever's closest in the race.

I advocated for this idea in the 'Worst offseason nightmare' thread. If the organization doesn't think he can start and be a consistent pitcher, then let's give him a shot to be the closer of the future. We've seen what KC did last year with their 3-headed monster that shut games down once they got the lead into the 7th inning. If Perkins can stay healthy, a May-Perk back end of the pen can be pretty formidable.

What's been incredibly alarming during this 6-out-of-7 stretch has been the lack of any sort of shutdown effort by a starter, other than Duffey's work in the 15-2 Baltimore game. Given the options not being all that appetizing, the bullpen did their job during that stint. But this business with the starters needs to end pronto or else the Astros will go sweeping thru Target Field.

Well, that was a crappy way to kill the streak. The near misses by Mauer and Suzuki and the absolute robbery of Sano really made this game closer. But the glaring issue with this game is the fact that a starter still couldn't get it done. Amazing they were able to win 6 in a row without a shutdown effort out of any starting pitcher. Someone needs to reverse that trend pronto. Go home, get 2 out of 3 from the 'stros and let's keep this train rolling.

Boxberger? I think that was the special at Five Guys earlier tonight. Let's break his heart like we did with Britton's in Baltimore last week.

4 runs isn't going to be enough to win this game. I'm not sure I can trust Milone to get us thru the 6th and to the bullpen.

As said throughout this series, what a P.O.S. stadium. That ball was headed for the Bay Bridge.

I guess those fans didn't want to catch a home run ball. Come on, a little help on that??

My afternoon chuckle comes from the same website and seeing the links titled "A suggestion I'm glad I didn't make about the Twins" and "Trade Deadling Makes Twins look smart". Amazing what a 6-game winning streak will do to all the naysayers. I'm surprised some fans and bloggers don't have major ACL injuries with all the knee-jerking going on. Ride the roller coaster, people...that's what baseball seasons are all about!!

WOOOOOHHOOOOOOOOO....Won the Archer game!!! And as long as the Jays don't yak an 8-run lead, we've got the WC2 back!!