jimbo92107

What was his last injury, an oblique strain? Maybe that's acting up again. That would explain his inability to finish his motion properly, which would result in a lack of control.

So, are Tonkin, Rogers and Berrios really worse than the guys we've just seen?

Should have brought in 'Extra E.'

I think I'm seeing why the Rays gave up Jepsen for a good control pitcher.

So far the mlb.com network has dropped the game signal at least ten times. Not impressed. Each time I had to reload the app on my TV.

Joe Mauer's been hitting a ton of lag-head foul balls down the third base line. Maybe it's time Joe looked for a bat with a lighter head.

I just upgraded this PC to Windows 10, just before the Twins game. It's actually working! For the moment!

Tyler DuffEy: 6'3", 220 pounds. ERA last ten AAA games, 2.45. 132 innings pitched this season, overall ERA of 3.24. 24 years old. Fifth round pick in 2012 from Rice University. Nothing in his bio about his stuff. Anybody got the story on that? BTW, let's nickname him "E", so we can all remember to put in the E before the y. "The extra E is for extra pee." Anybody remember that one?

From what I saw last night, Trevor May has been studying how Glenn Perkins does it. May brought 96-97mph heat that he was nailing the corners with, plus a hard slider that they didn't want to offer at. Are the Twins grooming May as a closer? What else will they be asking him to do...wash the uniforms? Given the struggles of Fien and Boyer, the Twins might be looking at May and Keven Jepsen as their 7th and 8th inning guys, or maybe even working May in as a closer option when Perkins starts looking a little ragged. Hard for me to imagine the team committing May to closer just when he was starting to look like a very good starter, but the team clearly is trying to make adjustments from inside the roster.

Not necessarily. It's an old adage in baseball that the first time around, a new pitcher has the advantage. Even if a team as good as Toronto has a "book" on a guy like Duffy, it'll still be the first time they've actually stood at the plate against him, so Duffy might have a little advantage. Plus, we're comparing how Duffy would do versus how we suspect Milone will do against Toronto's rightie lumber company. Duffy might not be quite the corner painter that Milone is, but his breaking pitches will bend away from RH bats, where Milone's tend to bend towards them. Also, Duffy has an mlb-average fastball, so he might be able to blow a few past them. I'd still give the ball to May over the other two, but between Milone and Duffy, just this once, I'd be tempted to bet on Duffy having the advantage for one game.

If Tommy Watkins actually got AB Walker's K rate down to 20 percent, the Twins should pay him to be Walker's personal hitting coach. If he can cook, that's just a bonus.

Zoooooo keeeee!

I will say this about Trevor May: He's looking lean and mean, and he has developed his power reliever delivery. He looked practically overwhelming just then. 96 and 97mph, and spotting his fastball within about an inch.

Damn, old Joe is getting slow. Guy drops the ball, picks it up, flips to SS, and they still get the double play. Of course, it was a very hard hit grounder, which is why it bounced off his glove...

Slightly off topic, but I would like to express my sorrow to hear that Roddy Piper has died. An interesting man, and his one foray into film just happened to be possibly the best satirical look at the 1980's, when "Greed is Good" created such a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street that it literally seemed as if the world had been taken over by aliens. Satire is the cool shades that let you see the truth behind the facade. Roddy Piper was one of the people that really got that. Cool dude.

Exactly. The Twins should be looking at trades within their system this season. This is the beginning of a 3- to 5-year transition from a mediocre team to one that's competing for division titles for the next 8 to 10 years...if management is smart enough not to trade away all the farm depth for one year of contention. This was the year to really screw the future of this team. Fortunately, Terry Ryan only threw away one promising starting pitcher, Dr. Hu. He will be a great starter for the Rays about the time the Twins are finished with Jepsen, who probably will be no better than if the Twins brought up Berrios.

Sounds like browser malware. Try running the Eset scanner and Malwarebytes. http://download.eset.com/special/eos/esetsmartinstaller_enu.exe https://www.malwarebytes.org/mwb-download/ Each launches locally on your pc, loads the latest detections before scanning. They've detected stuff that goes right through Defender, including lots of trojans and malware. I run them both at least once a week.

Boyer mows down the side! ...Kinda. Yeah, I figure Jepsen will be a little better.

Could be your last chance to see Blaine Boyer pitch for the Twins. I now expect Seattle's lead to be extended.

Aaron Hicks discovered something that a lot of hitters never seem to figure out (like Danny Santana): If you turn your butt towards the pitcher, raise your front leg, and hold the bat in the pads of your fingers (rather than the meat of your palms), then it's easier to deliver a powerful blow to the baseball. But even better, it's also EASIER to check your swing. Plus, the extra velocity you impart to the ball will drive more grounders through the infield and more fly balls over and around the outfielders. It may seem contradictory that preparing for a powerful swing makes you a better hitter. Aren't you committing your weight and motion earlier? Slightly. But you're also better reserving your finish, which is the part where your bat cruises with power through the hitting zone. The bigger coil allows you better to hit outwards to the ball, which in turn makes the barrel carry farther along the hitting line. That gets you fatter contact and a wider spray pattern. Better still, because the power is created so far back, you don't have to try to generate power late with your arms, which Hicks used to do. Instead, you just work on channeling that early power, the way he's doing now. Best part is, you can still push the Cancel button quickly on a butt swing, the way Bryce Harper does. You just don't let the barrel carry, instead yanking it back. This is actually easier for him, because the bat head doesn't start its propeller motion until late in the swing. It's butt/kick, shoulders, hands, bat head. If the pitch looks bad, you keep the bat head back. You should be able to tell how powerful a guy's swing is by how impressive his check swing is. Everything looks powerful except that last flip of the wrists. Hicks is now starting to get that. Fun to watch.

Prediction: Hu will be pitching for the Rays mlb club by next season. Meanwhile, Jepson will be a slightly better 8th inning guy than Boyer. Crappy trade, they could have done better than Boyer or Jepson by simply promoting Berrios.

You can see why they've been playing Der Kid at 1B as well as the outfield. With Eddie Rosario and Aaron Hicks both hitting now, and Byron Buxton coming back to CF, there's no regular spot for Max Kepler in the outfield. He's too much like another Rosario, which is actually a good thing, but we already have one. Fact is, Joe Mauer's bat doesn't fit a power position like 1st base. Kepler's not a big home run hitter either at the moment, but his numbers keep getting better, and it's looking like his power will continue to develop. With all those triples, we know Kepler's got serious speed, too. Sounds like an offensive upgrade, unless/until Kennys Vargas starts really mashing the ball in AA. Having good young prospects is always a positive sign, even if it means pushing aside former superstars like Mauer. The game has always belonged to the 20-somethings, with just a few grizzled 30-somethings to provide mentoring and leadership. Mauer can still play, but right now I don't see how Kepler wouldn't be an improvement at 1st base.

Byron Buxton needs a nickname. BB and Buck are waaaay too obvious, but you've got lots of other easy candidates with a name like that. You've got ByBu, BuBy, B Squared, ByBux (goodbye to all those bucks), Byrooooon, etc. So many alliterations. Even RonTon works, a little. Or we could wind up calling him (Thumb). The parentheses indicate all those little injuries that keep happening to Buxton, resulting from his tendency to crash into things at high speed, WITH NO GLOVES. For all his immense physical talents, Buxton appears to lack the tool for self-preservation. Apparently the Twins minor league system has no training for how to roll off walls instead of smashing into them, or how to slide into a base without mashing a finger. Who taught Buxton to steal bases? He doesn't appear to know how to read a pitcher's move as well as an average high schooler. He doesn't get a walking lead, doesn't do skips, doesn't even keep his feet moving. He stands there like a statue, relying on nothing but his natural speed...which at the mlb level just isn't enough. That's why his steal percentage was shockingly bad before the injury. Luckily, the thumb is healing. Now, will somebody teach (Thumb) how to read a move and do a hook slide?

Last year I observed Hicks doing what I called "The French Mistake," h/t to Blazing Saddles, where he'd push his butt away from the plate prior to bringing his hands forward to hit the ball. This ensures that your lower half cannot contribute to the force of your swing, making Hicks an arm hitter. Turning your butt towards the pitcher is the secret of hitting a baseball really hard. It compresses the spring of your legs and allows you to create more propeller rotation of the bat, which needs to be more than 360 degrees to get the ball moving over about 100 mph. Watch the swing of Bryce Harper or Prince Fielder. You see more of their back as they lean into the pitch, which means they're turning their butt farther than Hicks, even the Hicks of today. Their bats go through a propeller rotation well over 360 degrees, sending the ball off their bats at over 105 mph. The extra velocity drives more grounders through the infield and more fly balls over the fence, increasing their batting average, just as it does for Hicks. Point is, Hicks can do this more, too. It starts with turning the butt more, which allows more shoulder turn. No more French Mistake for Hicks. He's finally learning to throw the bat, without quite letting go. This is no fluke; these improvements are here to stay. Aaron Hicks has learned how to swing a baseball bat!

Perkins is having trouble not flying open on his finish. I wonder why. Good ending.