jimbo92107

The DP grounder. Patron saint of all pitchers.

Eddie Rosario will have a lot more chances to hit the cycle. Just not tonight.

Yeah, he's had his chances. No more missing baseballs. For shame!

Well, at least Joe didn't hit a dribbler to second.

Hicks now batting lefty... only .248... Damn, he stung that ball, but foul... Beautiful change up. Hat tip. Hicks is swinging the bat so much better these days.

Damn, that guy is flirting with disaster throwing the ball there. Better to walk Dozier than throw it up and in to that particular guy.

Nice at-bat for Polanco. Walks to bring up the Doz.

Esco, yeah! Scores Eddie!!

Get him in, Esco!

Ha! It's like Eddie was listening to 'em in the booth. Rip that triple, you little bastard!

Mlb.com needs to buy a new washing machine, or whatever they're using to push their junk over the net.

See that swing by Jorge Polanco? Much better hands than Danny Santana. Punches his hands through the zone almost the way Rosario does, not quite as much outward snap as Eddie, but a nice, flat drive. With that swing, Polanco will get a lot of hits. The barrel stays in the zone really well. Santana's got a quicker, more sudden swing, but his barrel pulls off the line of the ball far too soon, so he doesn't barrel it up as much as Rosario, and not as much as I predict Polanco will, either.

I was watching a slo-mo of Ryan Zimmerman's swing earlier, and I noticed that Aaron Hicks is swinging the bat almost exactly the way Zimmerman does. The slow leg lift, the bat wave, the whole thing. Seems to work. I should mention the slo-mo was of Zim's home run to left, almost the same spot Hicks just hit one.

Trade Rosario for who?

A light hitting SS with a Delmon Young attitude? What's not to like?

If they deal Perkins, that's the white flag on this whole season. They have no clear successor at closer. They could try getting by with Graham or May, bring up somebody (AJ Achter?), but we could not expect the level of success we get from Perkins, even after he's blown a few. I could see the Twins trading Plouffe to a contender for a high-quality prospect, like a good young catcher. Otherwise, this just ain't the year to make big deals.

That's not the impression I get at all. Eddie Rosario is flat out a major league ballplayer. His demeanor has none of the fragility of Danny Santana. Rosario walked onto the field like he owned it, has looked solid, and he's getting better steadily. Rosario is one of the guys that's constantly looking for ways to put pressure on the other team, not like he's letting them put pressure on him. There's two ways to relate to pressure: Put it on them, or feel it on yourself. Santana feels the pressure on himself, where Rosario puts the pressure on them. That's why I have total confidence in Rosario, where Santana is still iffy as a pro. That's why I'd send Santana down to AAA to work on his plate discipline and overall approach, where I'd leave Rosario in the corner outfield for the next decade or so.

Apparently they've called off the deal. http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/07/29/mets-acquire-center-fielder-carlos-gomez-from-brewers/

That was actually kind of funny. Sano hits a two-RBI double, then over-slides second base for the last out. Good one for his video vault.

You're assuming TR is willing to spend farm talent on a rental to make the playoffs. I'm not sure that's true. Could be that TR and management intends to stand pat, keep the farm, and wait for guys to develop, even at the cost of not having much of a chance at the playoffs this season. If the Twins stick with the "small market" model of team development, then guarding their farm system is what we should expect, rather than Yankees-style acquisitions of high-priced free agents. It's a longer orbit that comes around only about once every ten years, and the closest approach is still two or three years from now, when we see the arrival of guys like Mitch Garver, Kohl Stewart, Tyler Jay and other prospects now in Ft. Myers and Cedar Rapids. By then we'll know if Alex Wimmers was able to come back fully from TJ surgery, if Kennys Vargas found his power swing again, etc. I have to admit, the unending soap opera of internal player transactions and development is at least as entertaining as watching Twins games on TV. One of the reasons I prefer the Twins hang onto their own prospects is because I like seeing the Twins' own draft picks work through the development process, rather than passing them around between teams like a bunch of poker chips. I want to see Max Kepler gradually develop into a great all-around ballplayer. I want to see Kohl Stewart learn to hit the corners with every pitch. I want to see Kennys Vargas finally figure things out. I want to see Wimmers get back to the form that got him drafted in the first round. I want to see AB Walker get his K rate down to a respectable (gulp) 30 percent..! Something usually goes wrong, I know. But every now and then, something really goes right. All of it is interesting. Farming is fun.

Before the season I thought Paul Molitor was too introverted to become a good manager. Boy, was I wrong. He's not introverted, he's just totally unflappable. He's almost like a baseball version of Bud Grant. Not quite as stoic, but much less volatile than Gardenhire, more analytical in his approach. And innovative, something few people gave Grant credit for. Molitor is willing to try new things. One thing's for sure, the players know he's on their side. Some people criticized him for stepping up to defend Aaron Hicks on that check swing, but you can bet Aaron Hicks knows who's got his back now, and that will bring the whole team closer together.

If Molitor had Oswaldo Arcia to PH against a RH closer whose main weapon was a cutter, a pitch that bends inward towards Arcia's swing... He certainly might consider it. Obviously all this is speculation. The best way to find this out is to try it. Use Arcia to DH or play RF against righties, batting behind Sano. You'd find out pretty quickly if pitchers kept walking Sano to get to Arcia, one of the few people with a swing of the same magnitude as Sano's. I'm okay with that experiment. I'm wondering what they're waiting for.

Pitchers still giving unprecedented respect to rookie Miguel Sano. They'd rather walk him all day than throw him a strike in a close game. And it pays off. CALL. UP. ARCIA.

I remember there was this lefty pitcher when I was a kid, his slider would curve right into my swing... I would have paid him to throw me that slider all day long. That's kind of what Perkins is throwing to those Pirates hitters. Nice, hanging sliders right over the middle. Yikes.

I just walked in. Anything interesting happen?