2wins87

That one was scary. Nice job MAT again

Royce Lewis 3, Andy Fletcher 1

Looked like the ump even realized he missed it. Really bad call

I'm guessing he probably won't either way, but maybe.

First big PH opportunity for Rocco

Royce Lewis is truly unbelievable.

If he's tipping and the Twins have picked up on it it seems like they've known it for at least a year and Gausman and the Jays haven't figured it out. That's a credit to the Twins coaches/scouts/players.

MAT!! Really closed on that one

He's had good starts but they've blown him up a few times in the last two years. I've wondered if someone picked up a tip on him.

Impressive AB by Kirilloff too.

Fing Royce Lewis!! What a stud!

Way to go Eddie! Great AB

Defense looking shaky but Lopez looking good so far. Established the sweeper.

Ugh Polanco

I feel pretty good abouut Varland/Paddack going multiple innings too. Could easily cover 4+ innings in an emergency situation

Her we gooooo

Got my cord-cutter streaming package and am choosing optimism getting a month with the channels for the division and championship round as well. Guarding my emotions as always, but I really believe in this team to make a deep playoff run.

You're right, todays pitchers are much better. Everyone throws harder and their breaking balls are designed in a lab to be as close to unhittable as possible. Pitch mix has changed to the point where there isn't really such thing as a fastball count anymore as pitchers throw any of their pitches in any count now. Conditioning has advanced dramatically (not just in baseball but every sport). The hitters' training and technology has advanced too. There are high velocity pitching machines and pitching machines that mimic the spin on any pitcher's pitches. So when I see the low batting averages I can't come to any conclusion other than pitchers are really freaking good now.

Feels like Nashville is probably going to happen. In all honesty the markets that could most easily support a new team are ones that already have teams. When Oakland moves to Las Vegas, there is an opening in the bay area. Oakland wouldn't happen again but San Jose could happen, or maybe nearby like Fremont which would be a bit closer to Oakland also. The other market that could easily support another team is New York, more specifically in Jersey though. Maybe another meadowlands stadium, or somewhere in or near Newark? I like the idea of a team in Mexico, but it'd probably be a lot harder than a new team in the US or Canada. Mexico City, in addition to being pretty far from other teams, is 2000 feet higher above sea level than Denver, so they would have all the problems the Rockies have developing pitching and adjusting to home/road games. They played two MLB games there this year and yes, there were a lot of runs. I hadn't considered Monterrey before. It seems interesting but I don't know enough to judge how well it could support a team. I'm also not crazy about going to the NFL style 4x4 divisions, with two (or more?) wildcards. If they are going to expand the playoffs and the league I'd kind of rather see them get to 36 teams with 3 divisions of 6. That likely couldn't happen all at once though.

I was pretty high on Headrick too, there's still some time for him to turn into something. What has encouraged me about Funderburk moreso than Headrick early on is how his fastballs have played at the major league level. Funderburk does have slightly better velocity than Headrick, but it seems like he has some secondary characteristics that have really worked so far. I think I saw his 4-seam described as a cutter a few times. Baseball savant still classifies it as a 4-seam, but it has basically no arm-side fade, so it is a little bit of a hybrid with 4-seam "rise" along with more of a cut action. It is fairly unique and is actually very similar to Justin Steele's 4-seamer that's propelled him into the NL Cy Young conversation, so that's pretty interesting I'm guessing his cut/4-seam and sinker tunnel very well until the late movement in different directions. It seems to have really kept hitters off balance so far.

Of the guys to pitch at least 20 innings in relief for the Twins this year, only Pagan, Thielbar, and Moran were never starters at at least AAA. Being a minor league reliever is definitely not the best path to sustained success as a MLB reliever. To be fair, most of those guys have had at least a little success as major league relievers, just not very sustained success. Hildenberger is probably the biggest cautionary tale for those of us that are excited about Funderburk. I really thought he was going to be a fixture of the bullpen after 2017. It's an even smaller sample for Funderburk, and maybe he gets exposed by midseason next year, but he's certainly looked the part of a major league reliever so far.

I agree with everything you said about all the teams. Houston is still currently the most likely opponent so I took a more detailed look at how they might set their rotation over the next few days. I think they want to have Valdez and Verlander in the WC rotation for sure, and I guess Christian Javier has the inside track for the third spot. None of Javier, France or Brown have been particularly strong over the last few months, so I think they go with the veteran, but I could be wrong, and maybe they go with the fireballer Brown despite mediocre results. Anyway, Valdez goes tonight, then they have an off day which does allow them some flexibility. They probably stick with their current rotation and France pitches Friday, on 5 days of rest. The only other option would be to skip France and go to Brown on 4 days of rest. I don't see a compelling reason to do that. Saturday they could start shaking it up, and it's possible they could already be facing a must-win. Verlander could go on 4-days rest here, which would set him up for game 3 of the wildcard round after another 4 days of rest. They could also stick with Brown, in which case Verlander would still be slated to go on Sunday, but I think they might be willing to start him again in game 3 on 3-days of rest. The best scenario for them would be to clinch before Sunday with their current rotation in tact, which would allow them to skip Verlander's last start. I would think that we would then get Verlander and Valdez in games 1 & 2, both on a little extra rest. Under any scenario I think we would get Valdez in either game 1 or 2, and probably the only way we wouldn't see Verlander at all is if the West goes down to the last game of the season and the WC series doesn't go to 3 games, but he could end up pitching on short rest, which would hopefully help the Twins at least a little bit. Without a rest day and facing each other for the last 4, if either Texas or Seattle ends up as the wild-card they will probably have had to stick with their current rotation. Anyway, I'm really hoping for a Seattle win tonight just because it's Houston and we can probably all agree that we'd rather just see them miss the playoffs altogether. And if the Angels somehow manage to beat Texas again tonight, that should set up a pretty wild weekend. We should also probably be rooting for Chicago and Miami to go on winning streaks to keep the pressure on Arizona against Houston as well. The Twins' games might be boring but it should be a fun weekend.

Funderburk makes the back end of mine @Brock Beauchamp

I'm more concerned about his recent performance as a starter, which has been good, so I think that should be able to translate. I think the prior experience in the bullpen just tells you that he'll know what he needs to do to be ready from his first pitch, and you would have more questions trying to transition Ryan and Ober this late in the season. Maeda might have the best argument to be the 3rd starter, though you could also pretty easily argue for Ober who I think will probably not be a factor at all in the wild-card round. But if you trust Maeda more than Ryan and Ober, putting him in the bullpen, at least for the WC, might be the biggest impact. Maybe you plan to have him on call for a quick hook situation in game 3, but he could also get 2 or 3 critical innings in game 2 if the bullpen is heavily used in game 1. Or he might even get into game 1 and be a potential option in game 3 as well. I have a hard time deciding who I'd most like to see start a potential game 3, but I see the logic behind putting Maeda in the pen with his experience and his overall success this year.

Wouldn't have minded seeing Rodriguez get a bit more experience, but maybe he'll be playing winter ball. Rosario would be my next choice though as a young guy who can gain something from playing more experienced competition. I also like Cossetti going. He had a great season offensively, but as an older 4-year college player he could use more experience so he can hopefully be ready for AA and continue moving up. Sabato should have been beyond needing AFL experience at this point, but maybe he'll get a spark from some success there. Doesn't hurt. As usual, no particularly big names among the pitchers. Ethridge is interesting as a late round draft pick who never made it to high-A but did do well in low-A