Darius

Odorizzi would have much more credibility with his “everything will be fine” mantra in the media if he could ever pitch beyond the 5th inning with a lead.

Absolutely have to plunk one of their guys tonight, IMO. One AAAA batter swinging at another AAAA pitcher’s 3-0 pitch does not warrant hitting one of the best players in the league and opening him up to injury during a pennant race in late August. Cave is trying to establish himself in the majors. It could mean millions of dollars for him and his family. Why the hell shouldn’t he take any cookie the pitcher gives him? If the Rangers had a good player, I’d say throw at that guy. They’ll just have to pick someone else.

I get that preaching patience seems like the “enlightened” opinion to have, but the Twins don’t have the luxury of being patient, IMO. We’ve already basically given away the division (I don’t think there’s much of a shot to outlast Cleveland unless we take 4-5 of the 6 remaining games). Tampa is right on our heals (2 games) and Oakland isn’t that far behind Tampa. There is a real possibility that this team misses the playoffs. You still want to put yourself in the best position. This is no time to be patient. We’ve already seen where patience can get you. This team needs to be concerned with one thing, winning every single game possible from here until year-end. If you think Cron provides the team the best chance to win every game, more power to you. I do not, especially when Cruz comes back. I’d take Sano at 3B, Garver at 1B, Castro at C every time. People are bringing up defense? Doesn’t Cron lead the MLB in dropped balls at first base? Last point, unless you are just looking for a cheap contract to keep payroll down (which I’m sure the Twins are), Cron isn’t coming back next year anyway. There is no upside to keeping him in the lineup if he’s not producing today.

This team could really use an extended hot streak by Marwin. He’s seems to be dialed in right now.

It’s reassuring in a way to see that Polanco had only 4 fielding errors, which is manageable. I feel like a throwing issue is more likely to be corrected than an issue fielding the ball. The coordination it takes, aka “hands,” seems like something closer to inherent than learned.

Although I may be speaking too soon with our bullpen issues, we really needed a blowout like this. Hopefully it gets a run started.

My only issue is that I would never hit Castro anywhere but 7th-9th, matter who is on the mound. But, this is just a personal preference thing. I think lineup construction as a concept is overrated in terms of its importance. I think you should just get your best hitters the most ABs. My go-to lineups would be: RHP: Arraez (2B), Polanco (SS), Kepler (CF), Garver (DH), Rosario (LF), Sano (1B), Gonzalez (RF), Castro ©, Adrianza (3B) LHP: Arraez (3B), Garver ©, Sano (DH), Gonzalez (RF), Kepler (CF), Polanco (SS), Rosario (LF), Cron (1B), Schoop (2B). I would transition Sano to a full time 1B/DH and not bring back Cron next year. Cron has been awful, so just start the transition. Sano should be in a prominent lineup position against LHP. Maybe even every game (he’s arguably been the team’s best hitter for some time now - not counting Cruz). Arraez should be at the top of lineup. Adrianza is OPSing .930 vs LHP. He needs to player against every single LHP. Schoop only gets ABs against LHP because Buxton and Cruz are out. If even one was back Arraez would at 2B full time, Sano back to to 3B/DH/Marwin to 3B. Cruz to DH/Buxton to CF.

Very frustrated at this point. People can come up with whatever excuse they want. The bottom line is that awful decisions by front office/management personnel are going to cost this team dearly. They may even miss the playoffs because of it. Falvine has shown their evaluation skills aren’t as great as everyone seems to think. They misjudged their own team coming into the year. If they couldn’t see what they had and supplement it appropriately, that’s on them. That’s the ine thing they were hired to do....and there is two of them doing the job one does in many organizations. Inexcusable. The coaching staff in management is clueless. That’s becoming apparent. Baldelli’s in game moves are baffling at times. You can point to several decisions he’s made in recent weeks that were very costly. His refusal to hold anyone accountable (at least openly) is ridiculous. Why is so hard for anyone in the organization to admit Diaz made a boneheaded move by sending Adrianza? Do they think they’re fooling anyone? You don’t have to tar and feather anyone, but show some modicum of honesty and respect for the intelligence of your fanbase. This is not on the players. They are what they are. The rotation and bullpen even overachieved during the first half. The facts are that many of the players keeping this team afloat were already developed by the previous regime (exception is Cruz). Cron and Schoop at now killing this team. Their major bullpen acquisitions at the deadline have blown 3+ games since being acquired. This goes back to Morrison, Lynn, etc. It’s becomming more and more clear everyday that these guys don’t know what they’re doing. They hide behind their Excel spreadsheets, but don’t know what they’re looking at in real time. It’s getting to the point where I’d they miss the playoffs this year, I’d strongly consider a change. This has been one of the biggest botch-jobs by a front office that I can ever remember. Effectively, the incompetence stole a very special season away from this fan base, who has funded the stadium, filled the stadium, and shown a massive outpouring of support. It long running incompetence/small market self-fulfilling prophecy ingrained in the DNA of this organization has gone too far.

Not really concerned about whether or not Gratrol is up in September or not. It’s looking like we may be the second wildcard by that point. As a fan, I’m a little miffed about it. This Graterol “plan” is just insulting. It’ll just be pointed to in the press conferences after the season as evidence of going all-in. They should’ve made some real moves while they had the chance (namely, during the off-season). Additionally, the way the Twins entire pitching staff is going/has gone down in flames, do we really want our top pitching prospect in that atmosphere working with those coaches? Is here anyone left who thinks the major league staff is highly competent (relative to other playoff clubs)?

Someone needs to be fired at this point. This is an embarrassment. Does the pitching coach even come to work?

I never thought I’d hear someone say something like in regards to Richard.

Red Sox just blew the game open (kind of, 5-1) with a 3 run HR in the 7th.

Garver is slowly developing a Schoop-level ability to create an out in a monster situation.

Eh, one on first, one out in the top of the fourth....not high leverage enough for Schoop.

I don’t know what the deal is. They showed a graphic during the game. Gibson has the second highest swing and miss rate on his breaking pitch in the MLB (exactly 50%). It’s higher than Corbin and Clevinger (widely considers to have some of the best breaking stuff in the game). He’s got the stuff. He just didn’t trust it. He’s forced to throw a fastball eventually, and catches too much of the plate.

Gibson just refuses to allow a multi-run lead to hold for a full inning.

Huge win. Still not overly encouraged about this team going forward. But, I’ll take it. This pitching staff is just awful. Even after a win I should be happy about, it’s hard to be optimistic knowing the state we’re in pitching-wise. It feels like a dead team walking right now.

If it were me, I’d give to Yordan Alvarez right now. Lowe has been good as well. Due to volume, I’m sure he’s get the nod over Arraez. I think Arraez has been the more impressive player offensively, but the national perception around Lowe is probably favorable. Vlad Jr. shouldn’t have a shot, be he does (see doesn’t make sense above). Conclusion: I think Arraez is currently sitting behind 3 guys. Unless he continues to hit .350, and all others in the list slump big time, I don’t think he has a shot. Alvarez will, and should, run away with it.

It’s official. Baldellis is an awesome manager.

It’s official. Baldelli is an awful manager.

This is what’s so frustrating with being a fan of a cheapskate small-market club (and, yes, they could spend much, much more and be just fine financially). The wait and see approach with the roster every year. Instead of locking down solid bullpen/rostation peices, they threw things at the wall. The front office should never live down that they basically flushed a legit World Series contender this year with poor planning and inaction. When we get to end of the year, and we’re 3-4 out of the division, there will be dozens of losses you can point to. This isn’t hindsight. I’m sure there is a record of me trumpeting this back in May. This thing is over. Baledelli saying “the fight is still there,” says it all. The fact that he has to even say that gives away his confidence level.

I just don’t the enfatuation with Baldelli anymore. The guy just isn’t a very good manager. What happened to his coaching staff? Where is the Wes Johnson we were getting ready to build a statue for outside of Target field? Nobody is throwing the ball effectively on this team. His 3B coach has one job to do, and he apparently can’t do it. It’s time for Baldelli to stop getting the “yeah, but” from everyone and start taking some criticism. His gross mishandling of numerous situations in recent weeks has cost the Twins big time. I’m not far off from calling to give me Molitor back. Monitor wasn’t a great bullpen handler either, but at lest he displayed a modicum of aptitude for situational baseball from time to time. Baldelli, literally, botches nearly every decision in tight games. He looked like a genius when we were winning 12-3 every night, as anybody should. That call to send the Adrianza from third in that game, in that situation, is fireable. It wasn’t even close. We’re always logging player WPA. What was the difference there between making that absolute bone-headed decision and taking 2nd and 3rd with 1 out and a reeling Brad Hand. The division is over. We stand no chance against the Tribe the rest of the way. I could care less about a damn wildcard spot. This team can’t take care of business when it needs to, management can’t make the appropriate moves in game when it needs to, the FO can’t apparently can’t adequately assess a situation and get even respectable pitching to complement an all-world offense. We can’t even catch a break when we need one (two best players are injure during the biggest stretch of the season - cast-off Aaron Hicks stealing games st Target Field, seemingly every jettisoned relived in the last 5 years is lights out while we hung onto the garbage). Just another year of being a Twins fan. Another gut punch. I honestly can’t decide, would I rather have a season like this one go down in flames in epic fashion, or have an average team from the jump without the buildup? Well, I can tell you I would’ve invested much less time and money, so I’m leaning with the matter at this point. I’m sickened by this team right now. On to the Vikings to go through the same thing in a few months.

School comes through again. Totally useless.

Schoop is totally useless at this point. Total rally killer every single time.

It’s certainly not over. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to feel like the division race looks bleak at the moment (even after last night’s win). I think that’s probably the most realistic. Our most valuable offensive player (Cruz) and most valuable defensive player (Buxton) are both missing significant time down the stretch. Meanwhile, Lindor looks like an MVP, Ramirez and Kipnes are producing, and Clevinger and Beiber look like two of the best pitchers in the game. Cleveland has been the best team in baseball since June. We’re just over .500 during that time. Given the way things have going for quite some time now, it’s really difficult to see he Twins outpacing them through the final 50 or so games. I’m sure many will consider this trolling, but I think it’s just reality right now.