Tom Froemming

Prospect mavens across Twins Territory were bracing for impact all day Friday, anxiously awaiting details on the rumored Jaime Garcia trade with Atlanta. That deal never happened, but it was a good reminder that now is as good a time as ever to get acquainted with the system. There were plenty of notable performances Friday night, including Brent Rooker recording his first hit with Fort Myers. And his second … and third. Also, LaMonte Wade hit a big homer for the Lookouts, Tim Melville was brilliant for the Red Wings, Joe Cronin cracked a couple of homers for the Kernels and Akil Baddoo had a nice debut with E-Town.Find out everything that happened in the Twins minor league system on Friday. Glen Perkins had a big announcement to share on Twitter: Twins radio man Cory Provus elaborated during the big club's broadcast that Perkins would be pitching in the GCL. RED WINGS REPORT Rochester 2, Toledo 0 Box Score Tim Melville was outstanding, pitching eight shutout innings. He gave up just four hits, all singles, and walked a batter while striking out four. The 27-year-old right-hander now has a 2.63 ERA over six appearances with the Red Wings. The bottom of the fifth started by three straight singles from ByungHo Park, Tommy Field and Edgar Corcino, who drove in a run on his hit. In the bottom of the sixth, Rochester added another run when Mitch Garver and Niko Goodrum hit back-to-back singles and Kennys Vargas had an RBI ground out. Alan Busenitz pitched a scoreless ninth for his second save for the Wings. He’s thrown six scoreless innings since being optioned back down from the Twins, tallying seven K's with just one walk and two hits allowed. CHATTANOOGA CHATTER Chattanooga 4, Mobile 2 Box Score LaMonte Wade hit a huge three-run homer in the seventh inning and Dereck Rodriguez continued to impress as the Lookouts improved their second-half record to an insane 22-6. These guys are on some kind of a roll right now. In his seventh start since making the jump from Fort Myers, Rodriguez threw five shutout innings. He gave up four hits, a walk and struck out six batters. He really cruised through the first five innings, but opened the sixth by giving up a single and a walk. Rodriguez was lifted after 77 pitches in favor of Ryan Eades, who got out of that sixth inning, but ended up surrendering two runs over 3.1 innings. Nick Anderson recorded the final two outs, both on strikeouts, for his third save. Andy Wilkins hit his sixth homer and Travis Harrison was 2-for-4 with a double. MIRACLE MATTERS Tampa 6, Fort Myers 4 Box Score Brent Rooker started off his tenure in Fort Myers 0-for10, but he busted out by going 3-for-3 with a walk. Jermaine Palacios and Sean Miller also had three hits each. The Miracle scratched across a pair of runs in the bottom of the ninth, but could not complete the comeback effort. Sean Poppen is in the middle of an excellent season, but he struggled tonight, giving up four runs over five innings. Michael Theofanopoulos gave up another couple of runs over his three innings of work before Andrew Vasquez pitched a scoreless ninth. The big lefty has now thrown 19 scoreless innings for the Miracle. Brandon Lopez was 2-for-4 with two RBIs. Center fielder Tanner English scored three runs, stole his 18th base and threw out a runner at second base. KERNELS NUGGETS Cedar Rapids 7, Great Lakes 4 Box Score Kernels shortstop Joe Cronin made an appearance on the mound in a blowout loss Thursday night, striking out a couple of batters while giving up a run. Tonight, he made sure nobody would be thinking about converting him to a pitcher. Cronin slugged a pair of homers, his first two home runs for Cedar Rapids. Starting pitcher Evan Sanders had a very uneven night. The good: He only gave up two hits and struck out seven batters over five innings. The bad: He walked five batters and gave up four runs despite just the two hits. Colton Davis and Hector Lujan each pitched two scoreless innings out of the pen. Lujan, whose ERA is down to 1.63, picked up his ninth save. Lewin Diaz was 2-for-4 and hit his 27th double of the season. Caleb Hamilton was 2-for-3 with two RBIs. Aaron Whitefield stole his 24th base of the year. E-TWINS E-NOTES Bluefield 8, Elizabethton 5 (13 innings) Box Score Akil Baddoo was 2-for-6 with a double, two RBIs and a run in his Appy League debut, but the Twins fell in 13 innings. Bryan Sammons made his second start for E-Town and struck out five batters over six innings, holding the Blue Jays to two runs on four hits. Third baseman Andrew Bechtold made a costly error, his fourth, that led to two unearned runs in the eighth inning, but he also entered this contest with an OPS over 1.000 and added two more hits. Shortstop Jordan Gore was 3-for-6 with a couple of RBIs and second baseman Carson Crites hit a pair of doubles and scored three runs. Venezuelan product Jose Martinez was a stud out of the pen, throwing 4.1 shutout innings. The 20-year-old right-hander has only surrendered three runs over 18.1 innings (1.83 ERA) while striking out 16 batters and walking just three. GCL TWINS TAKES Twins at Red Sox, Postponed Just to fuel trade speculation, the Twins didn’t take just one regular out of the lineup, but they managed to postpone the entire game. No word on whether any of the players were hugging in the dugout. TWINS DAILY PLAYERS OF THE DAY Twins Daily Minor League Pitcher of the Day: Tim Melville, Rochester (8 IP, 4 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 4 K) Twins Daily Minor League Hitter of the Day: Joe Cronin, Cedar Rapids (2-for-4, 2 HR, 3 RBI) SATURDAY’S PROBABLE STARTERS Rochester vs. Toledo, 5:05 pm CT, David Hurlbut (3.56 ERA, 1.37 WHIP) Chattanooga at Mobile, 7:05 pm CT, Fernando Romero (2.82 ERA, 1.28 WHIP) Fort Myers vs. Tampa, 5:05 pm CT, TBD Cedar Rapids vs. Lansing, 6:35 pm CT, Griffin Jax (2.29 ERA, 0.92 WHIP) Elizabethton vs. Bluefield, 5:00 pm CT, Edwar Colina (2.70 ERA, 1.13 WHIP) GCL Twins vs. GCL Red Sox, 9:00 am CT, TBD GCL Twins at GCL Red Sox, Game 2, TBD Please feel free to ask any questions and discuss Friday's games. Click here to view the article

Anybody else worried this will make the Twins front office look bad around the league? Especially after Dozier to the Dodgers talks seemed to get pretty advanced before fizzling out. As a Twins fan, I'm certainly glad they're not accepting trades they don't feel comfortable with, but I just wonder if other teams would avoid working with a team that had a reputation of being difficult (not saying that's the case yet, just wondering).

If they don't like Garcia's medical reports why in the world would they even still want him?

Ugh, I've been bracing for impact since the rumors started. If it's Brusdar Graterol, I'm gonna be pretty disappointed. He's just about to turn 19, so he's a complete wild card, but he throws in the high 90s. Not the kind of guy the Twins should be flipping. But I guess whoever they're trading away they must not like very much, and Falvey was brought in for his pitching prowess.

Hopefully the Twins are taking on 100% of what's left on his contract, I don't see why they wouldn't, in order to soften the return. But I'm sure it will hurt, the Braves aren't just giving him away. My assumption is whoever is going to Atlanta will be someone Falvine is not enamored with. Someone they don't believe will reach their potential.

Twins have been really good in close games, and when the pitching staff can at least keep them in it they usually win. Record in one-run games Twins 10-5 (.667) Astros 10-6 (.625) Red Sox 13-10 (.565) Mariners 13-10 (.565) Royals 11-9 (.550) Rays 13-11 (.542) Cleveland 9-11 (.450) Yankees 9-18 (.333) Record when allowing five or fewer runs Astros 53-12 (.815) Twins 43-13 (.768) Rays 47-17 (.734) Royals 40-19 (.678) Red Sox 50-24 (.676) Yankees 43-23 (.652) Mariners 41-23 (.641) Cleveland 40-26 (.606)

I'm saying they need those things to even have a shot at the division. If they stand pat, I don't see much of a chance they beat Cleveland (or maybe even KC for that matter). But once you're in, anything can happen. I wouldn't bet on the Twins beating a Boston or a Houston, either, but it's just a five- or seven-game series. I'd just like to see the front office give this team a fighting chance to get in. From there, anything's possible. Baseball has no obligation to make sense.

It seems like a lot of people are interpreting "buy" as in all-out go for it mode. I don't think the team needs to shoot for the moon and sell off the farm. If they could just get a seventh inning guy better than Duffey (who has a 7.59 ERA over the last four weeks) and a fourth starter better than then guys they've been rolling out there (Twins starters not named Santana, Berrios or Mejia have a 6.68 ERA this season), that would dramatically improve this team. Does it make them favorites? Good golly no, but it gives them a great shot to catch Cleveland. One thing about the postseason is it shortens your roster. More off days means you can rely on fewer starting pitchers and fewer guys in your bullpen. You could go with a three-man rotation. Kintzler and Rogers could be available nearly every night. Last year, Cleveland made it to Game 7 of the World Series with Trevor Bauer and Josh Tomlin in their rotation. Ryan Merrit made a start for them, for cripes sakes! They were able to use Allen and Miller in 10 of their 15 postseason games. This Twins team is nowhere near as good as the 2016 Clevelanders, but I do think they deserve a shot. A seventh-inning guy and a fourth starter would give them that shot, and I don't think it would cripple the system.

I voted sell in the poll, based on logic. This Twins team wasn't built to win. It would make sense to squeeze some value out of the veterans by selling them off to further build for the future. Compare the Twins roster objectively to the other teams in the race and you find some serious deficiencies. BUT Baseball doesn't make sense. It's frequently completely illogical. There's only 68 games left and the Twins are only a half game out. There are a lot of teams that were built to win this season that would kill to be in their spot. If the Twins can win the division, the only thing standing between them and World Series glory is needing to win 3 of 5, 4 of 7 and 4 of 7 again. We all know this, we know how the postseason works. But when I really take a step back and look at it I think "man, any team can beat any team 3 of 5 or 4 of 7." So I'm changing my vote to buy, just so long it doesn't mean completely draining the system. We'll just have to trust that the front office can correctly value our prospects better than the teams were trading them to.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the kind words (and assistance) That's as high a compliment as you could give me. I really appreciate the fact that everybody who built this thing up to where it is today has allowed me to take the ball and run with it as much as they have. It's really an honor for me just to be on here, so I'm really happy people are finding value in the content I'm adding. It hasn't been long, but so far so good. I don't honestly know if I could've kept something like this up last season, but how fun is this? You guys ... it's July 19th and the Twins are a half game out of first place!!! I spend plenty of time poo-pooing the roster and picking at the Twins flaws, but we're 94 games into this thing and the team is right there. This is awesome.

I'm fresh outta bells and whistles, would you settle for a kazoo and a wind chime? FYI, I also just added a really fun postgame interview with Zack Granite, via FSN North's YouTube page.

It's up now. Let's just say this was a road game for me, so I didn't have all my usual tools at my disposal.

The Twins picked up their first series win over the Yankees since 2013, as Jose Berrios pitched into the seventh inning and Miguel Sano delivered a big two-out, three-run home run. The victory also put Minnesota just a game behind Cleveland (at least for the time being) in the AL Central standings. Al together now! And we can build this thing together …Win Expectancy (via Fangraphs) Download attachment: WinEx719.png The bats finally broke out and had a big inning, tallying six runs in the second frame. What's even more impressive is all six runs were scored with two outs. Zack Granite delivered a two-run single, Eduardo Escobar followed with an RBI base knock and Sano capped things off with a three-run homer. Yankee starter Jordan Montgomery got ahead of Sano 0-2, but he hung him a juicy curveball. Bartolo Colon's presence seems to have ignited some interest from certain parts of the fan base, but um, this Sano guy is worth the price of admission on his own. Maybe he doesn't have the freak show appeal since he's only 24 instead of 44, I don't know. The Twins also had a pretty exciting player on the mound, as well. Berrios, who's only 23 himself, cruised through six shutout innings. The Yankees finally got a run off him with two down in the seventh. His final line: 6.2 IP, six hits (all singles), one earned run, two walks, five strikeouts and two hit batsmen. Jose tried a season high with 108 pitches (65 of which were strikes). Tyler Duffey got the last out of the seventh inning with a strikeout, Taylor Rogers pitched a scoreless eighth (ho-hum) and Trevor Hildenberger finished it off with a clean ninth. There was some more curious lineup construction from Paul Molitor in this one. Jorge Polanco was the DH and went 0-for-3 and left three men on base. He's now 1-for-27 over his last nine games. Robbie Grossman started in left field and made an error. I guess things are always going to be a bit dodgy when you've got a 13-man pitching staff. At the end of the day, it was a big series win by the Twins over the Yankees. Good vibes all around. Postgame With Granite This is fun. After delivering his first two RBI as a big leaguer, Granite got a nice ice water shower via Brandon Kintzler. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: Pen719.png Thursday Off The Twins get to ease back into things in the second half, as Thursday will be the first of three days off between now and the end of the month. They'll host the Tigers for three games over the weekend. Click here to view the article

BUST ......................

The Twins have been searching for answers in the rotation all year. From bringing in Ryan Vogelsong for spring training, to giving looks to guys out of the indy leagues and waiver wire claims, the front office has tried to be creative. Bartolo Colon? Why the heck not. There was plenty of intrigue surrounding Colon’s Twins debut, but at the end of the day he looked pretty much exactly like you'd expect from any pitcher who recently got released.Win Expectancy & Top 5 Plays Per WPA (via Fangraphs) Download attachment: WinEx718.png Download attachment: TopPlays718.png To be fair, Colon actually looked great through the first three innings, shutting out the Yankees. He gave up just a couple singles and struck out Aaron Judge, Matt Holliday and Gary Sanchez. Big Sexy ran into a little trouble in the fourth, giving up a run, before coming a bit more undone in the fifth. Colon gave up a single and a pair of doubles to open the fifth frame before being removed. The scored was tied 3-3 upon his departure, but Ryan Pressly allowed an inherited runner to score. Bartolo’s line at the end of the day: 4.0 innings, eight hits, four earned runs, no walks, three strikeouts. He got released by the Braves for registering an 8.13 ERA and 1.78 WHIP. He has a 9.00 ERA and 2.00 WHIP with the Twins, but I’m sure he’ll get another start. Which is fine, the Twins have tried just about everything else outside of promoting Fernando Romero or Stephen Gonsalves, so why the heck not I guess? Bartolo did his thing, throwing almost exclusively fastballs that mostly failed to even flirt with 90 mph. You wouldn't expect him to change at this point, right? Info below via Baseball Savant: Download attachment: ColonGraph1.png Miguel Sano smashed a frozen rope for a homer, his 22nd, and also hit a double. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: Pen718.png Wednesday Twins (Jose Berrios, RHP) vs. Yankees (Jordan Montgomery, LHP), 12:10 pm CT Montgomery has been tough on lefties this year, holding same-sided batters to a .171/.244/.415 (.659 OPS) line. He’s getting his first taste of the majors this year, and has fared quite well, posting a 3.78 ERA, 1.27 WHIP and 8.5 K/9. July has been a tough month so far, as he has a 5.27 ERA over three starts, two of which he failed to complete five innings. Of course, Berrios seems to have hit a speed bump of his own of late. He has a 6.63 ERA over his last four starts, giving up a .943 OPS to opposing hitters. He lasted just 1.2 innings and gave up seven runs (two earned) to the Astros last time out. Jose has been much better at Target Field (2.86 ERA, 0.87 WHIP) than on the road (4.46 ERA, 1.41 WHIP), so lets hope some home cooking does him good. Click here to view the article

Max ranks third among right fielders in both defensive runs above average and UZR/150, trailing only Mookie Betts and Yasiel Puig. That zone profile is pretty impressive. Nice to have some hot spots both up and down in the zone, inside and outside too.

Pinch hitter Eduardo Escobar delivered a go-ahead single in the bottom of the eighth that would end up as the game winner, Adalberto Mejia was rock solid yet again and the backend of the bullpen locked it down for a Twins victory. Over the Yankees!Win Expectancy & Top 5 Plays Per WPA (via Fangraphs) Download attachment: WinEx717.png Download attachment: TopPlays717.png With the game tied at two in the bottom of the eighth inning, Joe Mauer hit a leadoff single and Miguel Sano followed with a single of his own. Max Kepler came up next and struck out to end a strange at-bat. Max showed bunt on the first pitch, which he took for a ball. He then swung through the second pitch. He missed on another bunt attempt for strike two. Enough of that nonsense right? Nope, he was showing bunt again on the next pitch despite having two strikes. He pulled back to take ball three before striking out swinging on a foul tip. Kennys Vargas was due up next, but instead Paul Molitor turned to lefty killer Eduardo Escobar (.902 OPS vs. LHP entering tonight) to face southpaw Caleb Smith, who was making his major league debut. Escobar lined a single to left that scored Mauer from second. That was followed by an Eddie Rosario double that plated Sano. Bullpen Usage Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days: Download attachment: Pen717.png Tuesday Twins (Bartolo Colon, RHP) vs. Yankees (Luis Cessa, RHP), 7:10 pm CT Cessa, 25, will be making his fourth start for the Yankees this season. Over 94 innings in the big leagues the past two seasons, he has a 4.31 ERA and 1.17 WHIP, but he’s also surrendered 19 homers (1.8 HR/9). Well, it’s happening. Bartolo Colon is going to start for the Twins, which will become the 10th team he’s played for. Big Sexy was released from the Braves after he had an 8.14 ERA over 13 starts. He also struggled in his only appearance in Rochester, giving up four runs over 3.2 innings. Click here to view the article

Turn Aoki's two-run double into an out. Whether it was a poor jump by Rosario, poor positioning from the coaching staff or a little bit of both, that ball needs to be an out. The hit probability on a ball like that is only 35 percent, per Baseball Savant. After the inning was extended, Gibson walked a guy after what should've been the third out. Also, Marisnick had no business coming around to score in the seventh. He scored from second base on a ground out to third. So that minuses out a hit, a walk and three runs from Gibson's line. Leaves him with this: 6 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 6 K. Pretty great performance against by far and away the best offense in baseball.

RHP Bryan Mitchell will be starting for the Yankees today. He has 5.06 ERA over 12 games with the Yankees this year, all of them out of the bullpen.

I agree with this. I'm not a doctor, I have no evidence that suggests it is risky to let Romero continue to pitch, but the longer he's throwing the more and more nervous I get. The team is clearly concerned about overusing him, limiting his pitches/innings, so why continue to push it? I have already reached out to the Empire to see if I can borrow that thing they froze Han Solo in. Gonna ship it Chattanooga. We'll melt Romero out of the carbonite around spring training.