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bighat

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Everything posted by bighat

  1. bighat
    Disagree with your take on Rocco - but I do agree that this team is among the most puzzling teams in years. Frankly I think they've been extremely lucky, there are probably 10 games that could have easily gone the other way. The reality is that this team should be treading water around or just below the .500 mark, but everyone's frustrated because they've been lead to believe this is a playoff-caliber team. Everything makes more sense when you start thinking of them as a mediocre ballclub, building for 2023.
  2. bighat
    Twins are about to lose their 3rd straight series. Two of them coming to some of the worst teams in baseball (AZ and CO), with the other coming to a division rival who wrestled 1st place away from them. The Twins have now been shut out 10 times, worst in MLB. I am puzzled by the "trade for Marquez" chatter in this article. What we should be talking about is Bundy's performance, and whether or not the Twins can salvage something for him at the deadline. Looking more and more like MN will be sellers, folks.
  3. bighat
    Yep, for all the pitching woes and the amount of time devoted to the discussion, I think the offense (or lackthereof) is what's going to sink the season for the Twins. Clutch hitting doesn't exist, and they seem to have a terrible time with RISP with less than 2 outs.
  4. bighat
    Worst loss since the one in Oakland last year when Arraez threw the ball over Sano's head. If you recall, that loss sent the Twins into a very dark place they could never come back from. Last night's game has a similar feel: doom. I can't believe anyone is still blaming Rocco. It's not like he has a choice between a putting in Mariano Rivera and a bus driver and keeps making the wrong moves. These are grown men, major league baseball players. If the manager doesn't trust Duffey enough to put him into a 2-run game in the 9th inning, what the hell is he even doing on this team? If Kirilloff and Celestino and Larnach can't make major league plays in the OF, why are they all on the roster? Second night in a row where super inspiring offensive moments were immediately squashed by horrendous pitching. Good teams don't do that, especially two nights in a row when they are FIGHTING FOR FIRST PLACE AGAINST THEIR DIVISION RIVAL! With a Boston win last night, the Twins are now outside the playoff picture looking in. We're watching the death of the season in real time right now. Don't forget the Twins have 5 games AT Cleveland next week. Team could be under .500 before that series is over.
  5. bighat
    The big question is, how many more games will Duffey, Thielbar and Smith cost the Twins before they cut bait? These three guys could easily lose the Twins between 3-5 games before the trade deadline. Those losses will loom large in what's currently a very tight race, the Twins simply aren't good enough to have that kind of room for error.
  6. bighat
    Twins strike out 15 times, continue to struggle with clutch hitting. Pagan isn't good and we've all known it for a while now. No way this team has a chance against Bieber tomorrow, and McKenzie has been great as well and he's throwing tonight. Statement series for Cleveland, should be an easy sweep for them. Chicago's right back in it as well. Next week's 5-gamer in Cleveland should be the nail in the coffin for the season.
  7. bighat
    Great report, love how you show your work and I read the entire thing and was nodding my head. My only disagreement comes from this quote regarding Trevor Larnach: "I'm going to ignore his huge slump over the last month, and especially last couple of weeks and hope it's luck related rather than a repeat of last season." -- Since his debut, there has always been a huge group of fans lining up to make up excuses for his poor play. A guy like Miranda goes 0-for-5 and Twins fans are ready to jettison him to the Mighty Mussels, meanwhile Larnach goes 2-for-40 over a 3 week stretch and it's "just bad luck". But hey, it's your article and you can ignore and/or include anything you want! I just happen to disagree on Larnach. But like I said, great work dude and thanks for the post. Very impressed with your thoroughness and even more impressed with how you were able to get it down in writing for the masses. Well done.
  8. bighat
    Admittedly being a bit overdramatic with the "sell sell sell" nonsense. BUT frankly I'm really am having a hard time getting excited about this team. It's hard to devote an entire evening to watching the game because they score between 0-2 runs way too often, and that's an unwatchable product.
  9. bighat
    Very bullish on this Twins team - sell, sell, sell. Starting pitching isn't great, bullpen is full of holes and oh yeah they can't hit. They're incredibly lucky to have the record they do. Here's hoping they don't trade away any farm talent at the deadline, it would be a complete waste. Been shut out 9 times in just over 60 games, that's putting up a goose-egg once a week. Most days they score 1 or 2 runs, and then once a week they'll blow up for 11 which inflates the stats. Guardians should win 2-of-3 this week and 4-5 next against this team, I can't see them finishing higher than 3rd in the division once the dust settles. 80 wins would be a huge accomplishment with what they're working with.
  10. bighat
    Both doubles came with 2 outs. The Arraez double was mashed and the runner would have easily scored but it went over the wall and was a ground-rule double, meaning Sanchez had to come back to 3rd base. Miranda then couldn't deliver with two outs. The double by Buxton the next inning was hit so hard that it bounced back off the wall into play very quickly. Kepler really didn't have a chance to score, and he'd have been out at home. Correa then couldn't deliver with 2 outs. Twins should've, could've been up 5-2 or more by the mid 2nd inning, but the clutch hitting was nowhere to be seen.
  11. bighat
    The real story here: Cleveland is now just 1 game back. Twins may not even be in first place anymore by the end of this series. All of this playoff talk and deadline trade talk is kind of crazy considering they aren't going to make the post season unless they can hit the baseball. Because I'm afraid that no matter how much hand-wringing we do about the pitching staff, the real problem with this team is that they have too many games where they can't hit when it counts. They're in another deep scoring slump with 0, 3, 0, 5, and 2 runs scored over their past five games. And that five-spot was only due to a late-inning rally, they were well on their way to scoring just 1 run that game. Twins have light-hitting Urshela, Larnach, Miranda, and Kirilloff all in the lineup, with Jeffers rejoining them tomorrow. I really don't see how this team can win ballgames or score unless at least 2-3 of these guys start pulling their weight.
  12. bighat
    This strikes me as a wishlist, not a realistic possibility. It's just too perfect. An older "prospect" who never had much value until he had one good year, who also doesn't really have a position with this team just happens to be the guy everyone else wants and lands us Frankie Montas? C'mon, man. Get real. A guy like Montas is going to cost us something like Larnach and Kirilloff and/or Steer. We're going to have to prepare to lose some guys we really, really like.
  13. bighat
    Great series win, hope to see the same in AZ. One thing I fear this weekend is that Rocco will be resting lots of guys and putting in the "B Team" on at least 2 of the three games in order to have the team fresh for Cleveland. Twins are still just 7-7 so far in June and the Guardians have gained 2.5 games in the standings on them this month. Twins have a huge 3 game series at home against Cleveland starting next Monday, then they have another 5 game series at Cleveland the following week. We know how the Twins did against DET when they had that 5-gamer. Keep expectations realistic.
  14. bighat
    Don't know how the Twins keep running Jeffers out there at this point. There's no way that swapping him out for Godoy wouldn't be an improvement.
  15. bighat
    Yeah, agree that it's bothersome to see the Twins struggle so badly against subpar pitching. In their defense, they did manage 9 hits on the night - most coming from the top of the order. The bottom 3rd of the order (Larnach, Urshela, Celestino) was a horrific 1-for-11 with 7 strikeouts. The Twins have several unimpressive wins this year, which is much better than having a bunch of impressive losses. Sometimes you just put the W in your pocket and don't think too much about how it got there.
  16. bighat
    Would love to see Archer go 5+ tonight and keep building on what's been a relatively successful season.
  17. bighat
    Enough of Cole Sands - might be time for his agent to start looking at sending him out to join our old buddy Charlie Barnes in Japan. Guys like Sands and Barnes are just organizational fodder that end up in the meat grinder once in a while due to injuries. FWIW I think Barnes was far and away more successful than Sands in his brief stint.
  18. bighat
    Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds were the last pair of teammates to finish 1-2 in the MVP voting race. Will Buxton/Arraez be next? The Twins continue to eek out these close games and win ballgames they seemingly have no business winning. Example: Chi-Chi Gonzalez on the mound twice in the past week against the Jays & Rays respectively, won both games. Just crazy stuff. Look at this rotation! And the bullpen! How are the winning these games?!?! Cole Sands for 4 innings today, Duffey for 2? With Buxton and Correa back in the lineup, it could be a very high scoring game on both sides.
  19. bighat
    Other teams probably have the same opinion as you. Unfortunately his trade value has taken a huge hit and is probably at an all-time low right now. Twins won't trade him - they simply won't receive anything close in terms of value.
  20. bighat
    Unreal. Don't even have any memes or jokes, it's just plain brutal.
  21. bighat
    Saw this on Twitter:
  22. bighat
    The past two series have shown that the Twins are several pitchers away from being able to realistically hang with lineups like the Jays & Yanks. Duffey and Bundy should be shown the door, but will likely keep their jobs once they get a chance against SEA and ARI next week. Unfortunate. Twins are going to lose a boatload of prospects in July if they want to make a run at this thing. Get ready to say goodbye to many of your minor league favorites. Appears the new humidor balls are out and the corked balls are back in play. Was the umping bad on both sides or was it as lopsided as I feel it was? To lose a game like this, where the Twins came out with 3 straight STATEMENT homers against the AL's best pitcher is frankly unforgiveable. Twins made errors and baserunning mistakes, but ultimately this is all on the pitchers. Horrific effort, couldn't rise to the moment. If the Twins get anywhere near the Yankees in the playoffs it's gonna be another sweep and it'll be a bloodbath.
  23. bighat
    Well I'll be damned. After Tuesday's game one would think the Twins might have folded, but they really gave the Yanks all they could handle last night. Great to see Bux showing emotion again, and with Correa back I think the offense may remain confident. With Polanco heating up we might be finally getting that 1-2-3 punch at the top of the order we've been dreaming about since winter. How about Rocco pulling Celestino for Larnach - he was looking to pile on to the lead and it worked perfectly when Larnach delivered a PH double to give the Twins some room. Great move by Rocco, as was bringing in Jax and letting him go 2 innings. Props to Chris Archer, he got his first win as a Twin last night. When's he going to be able to throw 90 pitches? It's June 9th after all, even if he missed all of Spring Training he should be ready to do that by now. Or is Archer just at a 70 pitch limit at this point in his career? If so, I never heard about that.
  24. bighat
    I can't imagine he'll play the remainder of this series though, as we've seen the Twins are very cautious with these type of things. If a guy winces, he's on bed rest for a week. Seriously though hope Luis is OK. Definitely the bright spot on this team in 2022.
  25. bighat
    It's also worth questioning why Tyler Duffey was the choice to pitch late in a one run game. This is because this was one of Rocco's "forfeit games" where he refuses to use any of his best players because he's saving them for later in the series. Basically the Twins weren't playing to win last night - they were playing for a win on Wednesday/Thursday. The problem with this strategy is that all too often, the rest of the series goes sideways and the best guys never have a chance to pitch in a meaningful game. The Twins may very well lose the next two games by double-digits, and therefore the best chance they had to win was during that 1-run contest last night*. As a fan, I want my guys to play to win TODAY - and worry about tomorrow when we get there. Rocco's approach to the MLB season has always been way too far sighted for my taste. *In fairness, a team should have a bullpen full of major leaguers that can get batters out, regardless of how good the team they are facing is. The Twins have some serious holes in the 'pen and need to make changes.
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