jimbo92107

The secret sauce that is making this team win is subtle, and has many different spices in just the right proportion. The luckiest part has already happened - we have a combination of young players on the rise, like Hicks, Rosario, May, and Gibson. We have younger veterans that are nearing their peak potential, like Plouffe and Dozier. We have several solid veterans that hold their own and stabilize the team. We have Torii Hunter, a unique personality that helps pull it all together and inspires everybody to bust their butts. Even struggling Danny Santana is doing everything he can to get better, and it's showing. Oh, and Joe Mauer is hitting about .380 with runners in scoring position. To that you add a coaching staff that is one of the best in the business. Gene Glynn, Paul Molitor, Neil Allen, Tom Brunansky and Eddie Guardado. Then, to top it off, you've got management that has enough sense to not meddle with a good thing. The only weakness I've seen in this team so far is, when they face a Cy Young candidate on a good day, they don't do very well. Otherwise, the Twins look like they can beat anybody.

This could be one of the craziest winning seasons ever, for any team, not just the Twins. In addition to this merry-go-round in the rotation, you've got something like that going on around mid-season when time comes nigh to promote Buxton, whose presence in CF will add almost as much more defense as Hicks plus Rosario did. I'm still thinking of Polanco at SS if Danny Santana continues to flail at the plate, tho his D has gotten noticeably better lately, hat tip Gene Glynn. Good example of the New Twins brand of ball today. Milone was busy serving up stuff the Boston hitters just loved, and last year I would have put this one in the L column by the 4th inning. But this year the Twins are clustering hits in bunches, a trend that appears to thumb its nose at the gods of statistics. I walked away from this game, then tuned in around the 8th inning, when the score was tied 4-4. WTF?? It keeps happening...! Final score, 8-4 Twins, after they beat up on a guy that's supposed to be a damn good finisher. Who. Are. These. People??

It looks like Milone is busy resolving that issue right now. I'm pretty sure he gets free meals anywhere in Boston if he keeps tossing them those sweet sweet cookies.

The video shows Pedroia tagging up on second, not first. Unless I'm completely wrong, an option I always try to keep open.

Trevor May will not be sent down unless he gets hurt or somehow loses his poise on the mound. Right now he's as good as anybody on the staff, and he looks to be improving and solidifying his game over time. May literally out-pitched Rick Porcello last time out. Sending him down now would be totally irresponsible. I can't imagine Paul Molitor would allow it. This team has been shockingly successful so far. If Milone pitches well in Boston and keeps the team in the game, then he'll stick around for another start. If he gets knocked around, then he goes back down at the earliest opportunity. This is Nolasco versus Milone. It doesn't involve Trevor May.

That could be the best reason to bring him up, but I'd still like to see him go a couple outings in AAA without throwing a wild pitch or hitting a batter.

"He was relieved by Alex Meyer, who knows how to fill up a box score. He walked two, hit one, allowed one hit and struck out five in 2.1 innings. Despite his inefficiency (56 pitches, 34 strikes), he picked up the win. (At this point, seriously, just put him in the big-league pen… he’s not a starter anymore, at least not this year. And he would be an interesting option to have at Molly’s disposal.)" Put Coke-bottle glasses on him and have him run out to the tune of "Wild Thing." Seriously, I wouldn't promote any pitcher, but especially a high-90's pitcher to the big leagues if he still has a problem hitting batters...by accident. ;-)

Hicks realized that he couldn't quite get to Ortiz's screaming line drive, so he tried to deek out Pedroia, and the trick worked. Unfortunately, the ball didn't carom off the wall the way Hicks expected, so he had to go farther back to get it, and after that there was no chance to get Pedrioa, who was fooled only for half a second. I don't see any particular reason to criticise Aaron Hicks on this play. We can't expect any young Twins outfielder to be an expert on the outfield play Boston, which is one of the oddest parks in the league. The Boston announcers, who wouldn't pass up a chance to rag on the opposition, had nothing bad to say about Hicks's play. They even gave him credit for the fake, a good try. The fake itself is a good sign, because it shows that Hicks is mentally engaged in the game. That doesn't mean every play is going to work. Pedroia was tagging up anyway, and the ball was deep enough so that even if Hicks somehow makes that catch, Pedroia scores anyway. I'm not cutting Hicks any slack, but I'm not going to use this play to knock his progress in the outfield. He's generally been playing great out there. With half the Twins starters being flyball pitchers, this current outfield of Hicks, Hunter and whoever has been saving a lot of balls from hitting the ground out there.

Unleash the Vargas!

First, I forgive them. If this Twins team starts to lose, I'm okay with that, so long as they keep playing with the same aggressive, opportunistic attitude that has made them fun to watch. A team that keeps applying pressure often finds a way to win. Second, as this article mentions, the Twins have help coming from the farm. Santana's not producing? How about Polanco? A starter gets hurt? Bring up Milone. A reliver? Tonkin, or Oliveros. Need a little more power? Bring up Vargas or Pinto, or Walker, or all three. Want to see no baseballs hit the outfield grass? Bring up Buxton. A lot of these guys seemed so far away a year ago. Now so many of them are right on the verge of making it to the show. And what a show it's starting to become. The Twins are on a serious upswing, and it's just gonna get better.

Role 7 player... Is that like a 5-tool guy that also announces games and cleans up the stadium after? Imagine Byron Buxton in CF, Hicks in Right and Rosario in Left, with AB Walker as fourth OF, splitting DH duties with Vargas... OMG, the power and the glory...

True, plus the article doesn't account for the reason some of the Twins batters have a higher average with RISP: It's a tactical change in approach. Mauer especially is reverting to his RBI mode when runners are on base, but when they're empty he's working on his power game, which isn't working out very well, thus one grounder to second after another, with an average of about .188. His avg with runners on? About .387, last I looked. That's no statistical anomaly, it's an intentional difference in approach. I think Molitor has got the whole team thinking that way, and that's why they're doing such an outstanding job driving in baserunners. Molitor has the Twins taking advantage of "the moment" better than any other team in baseball, by a long shot. Can this approach be sustained? I have no idea. The stats appear to say no, but then the stats still do not contain within them all that makes baseball such an interesting game.

Good point, except for two things. One, speed without expert skill is kind of wasted, as in Santana's and Hicks's struggles at the plate. Two, the general reluctance of this team to steal bases makes all that speed meaningless. The fast guys you mentioned - Rosario, Hicks, Dozier, Santana, Schafer, Nunez and Robinson - should all have a permanent green light to take off if they think they've got a good chance to beat a pitcher's move to the plate. Santana and Hicks especially should be stealing a lot more. Generally speaking tho, speed is better than slowness. Unless your slow guys are hitting 40 home runs a year.

What a bad idea. Just when Nolasco is starting to show us why they're paying him a ton of money, the team should dump him and eat his salary? He suffered an ankle injury after about one inning, and he may be back fairly soon. Before that, he looked like his old self, peppering the zone with heat, then dropping his big hammer for strike three. The Twins are playing really well right now. There's no need for sudden, drastic moves. Milone can fill until Nolasco gets back, and then I say keep surfing this wave.

It comes down to enjoying baseball, which can be done no matter the outcome of a game. To see the subtle interplay of gamesmanship, the cat and mouse interchange of bluffs and tricks, that's where the enjoyment of a sport like baseball resides. The best reason to enjoy Twins baseball right now is also the reason this team is confusing sports pundits around the league. Why are they winning? The reasons are numerous and some of them are subtle. I would not deny others the enjoyment of figuring it out for themselves.

It's a nice swing, a little like Adrian Gonzalez, tho he appears to be a little too eager to start his sprint to first, which makes it look like his sweep isn't covering the outer half. That would mean he'd flail at a lefty fading curve or a rightie change up outside. He'd have to learn to hang in there long enough to punch outside pitches the opposite way. Nothing wrong with a power pull lefty, but the first thing he'll see is everything on the outside edge of the plate.

I wonder if Stephen Gonsalves represents a sea change in the attitude of this organization. For years now I've wondered why it seems like the Rays come up with one great young pitcher after another, when they draft about the same level of talent as the Twins. Maybe now we're starting to find out. Along with the terrible idea of "pitch to contact," the Twins appear to have emphasized young pitchers relying on a couple pitches, like a fastball and a slider, in the lower levels of their system. Then a pitcher was supposed to refine his game and add pitches as he approached the major league level... I guess that was the theory. Problem is, it's hard to refine your full game if you don't use it, and if you get to the majors with only half a game, you'll get killed. This sounds like a good way to ensure that most of your best prospect arms wind up being relief pitchers. Like Alex Meyer. Trevor May is a good example of how a guy fights through this system, despite a lack of training to be a complete pitcher. A very good athelete, May came up to the majors literally without knowing how to keep runners from stealing bases while still getting batters out. Why didn't somebody teach him that in rookie league? And why didn't he know how to mix in a change up before he got to the show? Why do so many Twins pitchers finish their pitches off balance and not ready to field their positions? It's good that the Twins want their minor leaguers to work on being "strike out pitchers." It would be even better if they demanded that every pitcher in the Twins organization was a complete pitcher, with a full set of skills, a game plan and everything.

As an editor, I would have saved the world and the Grantland a lot of grief by simply deleting the first three paragraphs of that dismissive article. Unneccessary opinionating, unfair characterization. Poof, into the trash. Now, for his half-assed analysis. Aaron Hicks is one good example, though in each of his examples he failed to notice factors that commenters here have been discussing for many weeks. People here know why Aaron Hicks was sent down, right? He had a few problems, but most of it came down to becoming more focused and engaged in the game, learning to play not like an employee, but a real player. We started hearing about his improvements at the plate a few weeks before Rosario was called up. Higher batting average, more power, stealing bases, better defense. When Hicks finally got back up, clearly he was a different player. The "light" had been switched on. This doesn't mean that Hicks suddenly became an all-star, but it does mean that he's capable of major improvements. The synergistic effect of having Torii Hunter in RF alongside Hicks and Rosario cannot be overestimateed. Hunter is the epitome of a star player that rose through the Twins minor league system, so his word is gospel to young players. That little jump-bump the outfielders do after winning a game? I can't imagine a more powerful motivator for a young player to feel that he has earned that bit of praise from Hunter. Both Hicks and Rosario clearly would do almost anything to get a "good play" from Torii. The result of that is a remarkably good outfield. Baseball is a very emotional game, and right now the Twins are riding a wave of motivation without desperation. They know they are not expected to win the division, but guys like Hunter and Molitor are letting them in on a great secret: You can do it if you play smart, pressure baseball. People outside the fanbase are missing out on the changes not just in the player makeup of the team, but also in the kind of baseball they play. Let's hope the Twins keep surprising people, all through the season.

The more legit starters they have up, the more options Molitor will have for mixing the rotation or giving one or more starters a break. If you stash say, Milone and May in the pen, those guys have the raw stuff to step in anytime and get a few guys out, or pitch the rest of a game starting in the 3rd inning. My point is, play to your strengths. Right now the Twins have more legit starters than great relievers. In fact, I was just reading that the Twins relief corps is ranked pretty low in the AL. Another factor is late game. A typical reliever will go maybe two innings in a tight game late. May or Milone (or Pelfrey) could go five or six innings late game, saving the rest of the pen for the next day. That could make a big difference over the rest of the season. Even if the Twins decide not to go with a 6-man rotation, they should still put a couple starters in the bullpen.

I think Brananorama fugured it out. With runners on, Mauer steps up in RBI mode, but if nobody is on base, he's working on his power game, which is supposed to feature pulling the ball. I bet pitchers picked up on this difference a long time ago. They're pitching Mauer outside and low when there's no RISP, knowing he'll try to pull it anyway. Result: tons of ground balls to the exact same spot, the second baseman. Mauer's going to have to make an adjustment. He's got to make pitchers pay for all those low, outside pitches. Line drives to the right-center gap would do it. Drive some doubles, and then when they come back inside, pull it. BOOM.

Some players make the outfielders hurry to stop them from getting a double. With Buxton, they'll be hurrying to stop a triple. I can't wait to see him in the Show.

I read the story, but it still doesn't make sense how a guy with the build and delivery of another Cole Hammels got his game so screwed up by major league coaches. Oh, well. He's a good pitcher now. Let's just enjoy Aaron Thompson while we can.

I looked up Stauffer's career stats. When healthy, he's been an ERA 3.50 kinda guy. I can see why the club doesn't want to lose him before they see what he can do. As for Tonkin vs. Fien, seems like kind of a wash. Fien's got a track record of success with this team. Tonkin goes down mainly on seniority rules.

Yeah, just don't get caught putting "water" on the ball, or you'll get booted from the game! ;-)

Not the way Nolasco has been pitching lately. He's finally shaken off the rust, and he's back to his game, which is peppering the zone from various angles with fastballs, then mixing in his big bender. Right now I'd say Phil Hughes is the most hittable starter. He's throwing the ball too flat (remember Matt Capps?), and his stuff's not moving enough. Any lineup with a lot of flat swingers - like the Twins - would chase Hughes in about three innings. Hughes needs to start finishing his follow-through before an infielder gets killed. As for a 6-man ro, why not? Whatever wins games. The Twins don't have guys that finish games, so maybe the best thing is to have a lot of starters that are more like long relievers. Or have a few legit starters in the pen...what's so bad about that? I could see May go to the pen (seniority) when Santana gets here, then either add Milone to the starters or put him in the pen, too. Maybe we're just being too hide-bound about the difference between starters and relievers. Can you get guys out? Wanna great, big major league paycheck? Don't be so picky about the role!