Vanimal46

Chicken dinnah! A winning streak!!

Now that was awesome!!

ANND Welcome! To Minnesota Twins Whine Line: Game Thread Edition! I am your host for the next 2 days, Vanimal. How neat was that victory last night? The odds were stacked against ol' Pat Dean... But he was able to out-duel King Felix, notorious Twins killer! I'm sure he'll be telling that story to his grand kids one day. Let's talk weather and lineups.... It's Seattle. Of course it's raining when the first pitch happens. The retractable roof wins again! Real feel of 54 degrees. Minnesota Twins: 1. Eduardo Nunez ® 3B 2. Brian Dozier ® 2B 3. Joe Mauer (L) 1B 4. Miguel Sano ® RF 5. Byung Ho Park ® DH 6. Robbie Grossman (S) LF 7. Eduardo Escobar (S) SS 8. Kurt Suzuki ® C 9. Danny Santana (S) CF P - Phil Hughes - 77 overall in MLB The Show! Seattle Mariners: 1. Norichika Aoki (L) CF 2. Seth Smith (L) LF 3. Robinson Cano (L) 2B 4. Nelson Cruz ® DH 5. Kyle Seager (L) 3B 6. Adam Lind (L) 1B 7. Franklin Gutierrez ® RF 8. Steve Clevenger (L) C 9. Luis Sardinas (S) SS P - Wade Miley (L) - Hasn't lost a start since April 19th.... Now, let's get to our favorite segment, the SCORCHING HOT Takes of the day! Miguel Sano: So much has been said about our beloved Miguel this year. He should be sent down to AAA. He doesn't work hard. We should trade Sano and keep Plouffe. Well, since a thread began on potentially trading Sano, he's been on FIRE! In fact, he's batting a whopping 22 points higher than his season average, and has hit 2 bombs since that happened! Is it possible that TD has successfully performed a reverse jinx on Sano the rest of the year?? I think so! Pat Dean: There was no love for ol' Patty Dean until last night. He's a soft tossing lefty. He's too old. He's not a prospect. Well he just proved us wrong! Not only did he out pitch one of the best pitchers in baseball, he now leads all Twins SP in K/9! Do we lock up Dean for 3 years $48 million now? Or June?? Robbie Grossman: He was viewed as a laughable signing at the time. Well, since he came up, there hasn't been any Twins hitter hotter than him! In fact, he's on pace to break Ted Williams' BA record! Does Grossman become the dark horse All-Star candidate?? Today is also National Hamburger Day, and National Brisket Day!! Did anyone celebrate in style today? Finally, this last video has nothing to do with the Twins. 6 year old Obadiah Gamble wanted nothing more than to have Vikings QB Teddy Bridgewater attend his 7th birthday party. He made a rap video for all to hear. Have fun getting this song out of your head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq5FtDC6lxw Let's go Twins!!

I don't see him in the lineup. It's possible he could be taking the day off.

Surprisingly he's the starting SS for the Rangers AAA team!

I'm at the Round Rock Express game and I'm seeing our old pal Doug Bernier play!

It took some digging, but I found a clip of Chief leaving the doctor's office after his "routine check-up" to get him in the door. http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view7/3861271/pimp-kramer-o.gif

By the way, happy birthday to our favorite young pitching prospect Jose Berrios! Turning the big 22 today.

Woah woah woah. You're missing a potentially YUGE national day tomorrow.... National Brisket Day!

For those living in the Twin Cities, did anyone go to the TC Burger Battle?

Great... now I have to go back to the drawing board thinking of a new theme for tomorrow's game thread.

It's also raining here in Austin... Supposed to go to a Round Rock Express game tonight and the forecast changes every 20 minutes. One station says 90% chance of strong thunderstorms, the other station says mostly cloudy and no rain.

Really wish I was alive when 80's pop was bursting on the scene. There's no decade that's come close to that kind of sound since.

There's quantity, but not a lot of quality that can help the Twins in the near future. I'm not sold on handing over the starting role to Murphy, Garvin, or Turner next season. 1 of the 3 can be a backup C. Juan Centeno is a cute story, but there's nothing in his history that would prompt a long term commitment to him. They're going to have to dive back into the FA waters to find their next starting C. There's decent names that will be available this winter (Wieters, Ramos, Lucroy) If I were GM, I'd pay significantly more on annual salary in order to keep it 1-2 years.

That's where I'm at. There's several candidates in the lower levels that need a promotion soon, so I would target young A ball players and see what happens.

Add Wade to the list of players who appear to be well overdue for a promotion. I'm becoming a big fan of his. Tough couple of weeks for Berrios. He'll bounce back eventually, but I feel bad for the guy. I also really like the slash line for Gordon right now. Doesn't appear that the errors in the field are effecting his hitting.

I'm jumping aboard the hype train. I've been very impressed reading about his success on the field.

Eno Sarris chat on Fangraphs today: 12:04 A. Reitz: Buxton is raking again in AAA. He has to come up soon right? It’s not like he’ll be costing the Twins games… 12:04 Eno Sarris: Of course. But. Uh. I don’t understand the Twins so much. Welcome to our nightmare, Eno.

I can't recall what happened to Slowey...

I can't imagine the sleepless nights Ned Yost will go through selecting an All-Star from the Twins... He should think outside the box and have a talent show to see who's worthy of the selection. http://i.perezhilton.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/howard-stern-americas-got-talent.gif

Fascinating article. Thanks for sharing. There's no other argument that minor leaguers are getting criminally underpaid for wages. I don't know how realistic it is to increase wages for every single player across the minor leagues.. If there are wage increases, then perhaps there shouldn't be so many lower level leagues. Does every organization need a rookie ball league, class A short season, class A, and class A+ baseball team? Perhaps some lower levels should be eliminated, and create more competition for fewer jobs. There are also other alternatives for prospective baseball players, such as the Independent Leagues. Though I don't know if they pay better than the lower level minors.

19 year old uber-prospect Julio Urias is making his MLB debut tomorrow. He's pitched a grand total of 45 innings at AAA. I'm rooting for him to dominate.

We'll be waiting for years for a beat writer in this city to write something about what's really going on in this clubhouse. 0% chance that they air any dirty laundry until the person and/or people causing this bad atmosphere are out of the organization.

Yep, and I think that is the only solution the Twins have. We can search high and low for minor league filler or the worst of the worst contracts out there, but I think we're wasting our time doing so. What has Nolasco shown in the last 3 years that would drum up any interest to trade for him?

I would love to see that happen. d-mac brought it to our attention in another thread that the Twins move players slowly through the lower levels and try to move them quickly through AA and AAA. Since then I'm bought in on the philosophy of moving players quickly through the lower levels and let them simmer in AA and AAA.