Archived Game Threads

Deep Thought: buy Jack Handey I am not Jack Handey, last i checked. so it's okay if i am shallow. Deep Thought: Deep Thought. How would it manage calling balls and/or strikes? Would Sano have struck out so frequently? And am i talking about the IBM product, or the Douglas Adams figment? Deep Thought: Cubs They are hosting this game. I wonder if they thought of offering Hostess Cub Cakes. They might not go over so well if cub is a listed ingredient. Deep Thought: Twins. We have a similar record as the Cubs. It is hard to tell us apart. Could this series decide our draft pick order next draft pick? Maybe no one will…

Twins Face Old Friend, José Berríos The Minnesota Twins are slated to face former ace-to-be José Berríos on Sunday who has a 3.31/3.47 ERA/FIP in his new threads with what would be a career best 5.50 K/BB if it were sustained over an entire season. Those numbers would be even better if you take out two starts where he allowed 10 earned runs with a K/BB of 9/7 over 7.1 innings pitched. For the first time in his career (I’m sensing a theme here), José Berríos is sustaining his first half success over the second half of the season. For the first time in his career (Ope, there it is again), José Berríos is consistently giving his team innings and production that he could…

You're not supposed to spoil the underdogs... I'm torn today, because I want Toronto to get in the Wild Card Game. They are an exciting and young club, with an MVP AND Triple Crown candidate in Vlad Jr., along with our old friend José Berríos. It would be even sweeter to see one of Boston or New York to be booted from the postseason. By winning against the Blue Jays yesterday, the Twins knocked Toronto to a half game below the Yankees for the second Wild Card spot. Now, I love watching Bailey Ober. But I hate the Yankees A LOT, and I'm almost positive you do too. Maybe Ober can have a great start, and Colomé can do his best April impression and make Blue Jays …

The Jays are leading a close wild card race for the AL with the Red Sox and Yankees in a dead heat. Every game counts for the Jays, and I for one, will be rooting for them in the post season (but not tonight!). The Jays are a spicy team, tons of interesting players, and I love watch Vlad Jr play. It will be a tough series for our Twins... On the bump: Twins: Michael Pineda vs Jays: Hyun Jin Ryu Lineups: Twins: Buxton CF Polanco SS Donaldson 3B Sano 1B Refsnyder LF Arraez 2B Rooker DH Kepler RF Jeffers C Jay’s: Springer DH Semien 2B Guerrero 1B Bichette SS Hernandez RF …

The Twins entertain Cleveland tonight in the finale and rubber game of a three-game series. Griffyn Jax takes the hill versus Cal Quantrill for the future Guardians. In looking at the future, Cleveland looks like they will be competitive as soon as next year. They have MLB-ready pitching and improved production from position players. Surprisingly, the Twins have won the season series and played some of their best ball this year against Cleveland. Griffin Jax gets another chance to stake a claim on a rotation spot next year. The USAFA grad has had some moments, but his overall numbers are poor due mostly to his inability to keep the ball in the park. …

Doubleheaders. I love doubleheaders. Except when they're only 7 innings per game; then I only like them. But I digress. I wish MLB would go back to scheduled doubleheaders. It's an easy way to keep the quantity of games and still condense the schedule. As a fan, I imagine that I wouldn't be alone in making a day of it in and around the ballpark. My love for doubleheaders goes back to my playing days as a young lad. What more can a kid want than to play baseball all day long? Traveling and playing doubleheaders was even better. On our way home, we'd often stop at a Zorbaz somewhat on the way and we'd load up on nachos and pizza and hang out by the lake a whil…

"On the fine art of Dumpster Diving." Looking at the Pitchers for this afternoon, one might say they are reclamation projects of a sort. One might even go on a long rant about populating the roster from players viewed as cast-offs from other organizations. I, for one, appreciate the time and effort that our organization puts into evaluating all possible options. Finding/creating value where there wasn't before is noble. Anyway, off my soap box. Soap can and should be put to better use. Gant did fine last time out, and i heard, so did Happ, so that trade was a double win situation. We been hitting better of late, and i like to think that isn't jus…

Royals Killer Max Kepler will look to add to his career .826 OPS against the Kansas City Royals in 322 plate appearances over 78 games which equates to roughly half a season of games played. If we extrapolate that to an entire season, he is slashing .266/.376/.826 with 18 homeruns, 96 runs scored, and 58 RBI. This season alone he's hit two homeruns with an OPS of .891 after Saturday night where he went 2-for-4 with a 2B and HR. Twins Killer Royals backstop, Salvador Perez, enters today with 576 career plate appearances over 141 games against the Minnesota Twins which is almost perfectly the equivalent to playing one full season. In "one season" of plate app…

The Twins face Kansas City tonight in the second game of their three-game battle to stay out of the basement of the American League Central. Starting pitchers are Brady Singer for the Royals and Michael Pineda for the Twins. Today is September 11th. It is the 20th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the United States wherein the World Trade Center was destroyed. Where were you on this date in 2001? Those of us who are old enough will most likely remember exactly what they were doing that fateful day. My memories focus on my family members, who were newly spread around the country and my worries for their wellbeing. A visit to the site of the WTC years late…

The Twins host the Royals tonight. By the time the Royals-Twins series ends, the Vikings season will have begun. I can tell you how the Vikings season will end right now before it even starts: Anyway, back to the Twins. If you are not still buzzing from the perfect game bid Wednesday night, then get buzzing again already! Joe Ryan's performance called back to other rays of hope in dark times, moments when one thinks, "this was special, this might be happening, I might actually be able to get my hopes up." I am thinking of things like Puckett's debut, or Hrbek's home run in Yankee Stadium in 1982, or Killebrew's walk-off homer before…

Welcome to the "Worst Game Thread Intro Ever", a game thread where nothing is ordinary, and everything is superlative. Nuance? what is that? (But sampleSize, why worst, rather than best? Surely you should write good things? Well, Rhetorical Question, that would be selfish) I confess, I didn't like to see Andrew Albers go down. Sure, he had a little trouble last outing. But at least i have the next best thing. I get to write in favor of another working man's pitcher: Randy Dobnak. But i go to cut and paste the line up, lo and behold, his name is no longer there, and Albers is back up. I am torn... Did my secret desire jinx Mr. Dobnak? Is it my fault he has this set ba…

Good afternoon Twins fans and welcome to the place where the best banter and humor exists on Twins Daily. That place to see and be seen is the one and only Twins Daily Game Thread! Tonight our Twins take on Cleveland after a nice win yesterday against our central division foes. Big Joe Ryan takes the mound tonight for Minnesota. It will be fun to see how he performs and how well that long hair holds up. I think this kid could turn into a decent pitcher in the near future. He looks confident on the mound and throws with a bit of a chip on his shoulder. Go Twins!! Below are tonight's lineups: TWINS: 1. Luis Arraez, 3B 2. Byron Buxton, CF …

Remember when the Twins traveled to Progressive Park in September of 2019 to decide the fate of the AL Central? Oh how these teams have taken a step back. Minnesota more so than Cleveland, but misery doesn't like to live alone. Maybe I need to stop living in 2019, but man - was that a fun season. Gant wait to see how this start goes. The Twins are throwing John Gant at Cleveland today, for his fourth start as a Minnesota Twin. Gant was effective as a reliever in his first few outings since being traded for J.A. Happ: Reliever Gant: 8.2 IP, 13 Ks, 2 BBs, .651 OPS, 4.15 ERA Starter Gant: 12.1 IP, 12 Ks, 4 BBs, .749 OPS, 7.30 ERA While st…

Cleveland (68-66) has recovered a bit in recent weeks after falling below .500 when basically their entire rotation was injured. Minnesota (59-77), on the other hand, continues to stink up the joint after having a pretty decent August. Thankfully, today might be a total loss for Twins fans, as they have Bailey Ober taking the mound against a quite bad Logan Allen (6.62 ERA*). As most of you know, Ober's overall stat line isn't that impressive but in the "what have you done for me lately" category, he shines. …

Starting Pitcher Preview Griffin Jax takes the hill for the Twins giving up 15 earned runs over his last two starts. His assignment today won’t be an easy one as the Rays boast the 7th best OPS against right handed pitchers and are 8-2 in their last 10 games. Moreover, Jax has been very susceptible to the long ball this season and the Rays hit just blasted six on Saturday. He has not faced Tampa Bay this year. This is the line up he’ll face: The Twins slumping offense will face righty Luis Patiño who is in his first season with Tampa Bay after being shipped over from San Diego in the Blake Snell trade. Patiño hasn’t been great in his 11 starts struggling with…

Andrew Albers. You say the name and it elicits all kinds of comments from all of us regarding the state of our pitching staff to the FO then to the coaches and manager. None of them good comments. The only reason we are seeing him pitch is because of the year we are having. So frustrating. And there were groans from everyone when he was called up and then when he was slotted to start last week. But, he's done this so far: Who'da thunk it? I certainly didn't. And his start against Milwaukee, who isn't exactly a slouch team, he did ... good. But we will see what he does today because, well, it's just difficult to imagine a near-36 yr old all of a sudden beco…

Good afternoon Twins fans and welcome to the Twins Daily Game Thread! I hope everyone is getting ready to relax and enjoy the long weekend celebrating Labor Day! For those of you that have to work on Monday try to take Tuesday off. You should get a day off for your labor as well. Tonight our beloved cellar dwellers will take on the Tampa Bay Rays. I lived in Tampa/St. Pete for almost 7 years and loved the area. I was there when the Rays started. The stadium is as bad as the Metrodome was by the way. Not a great place to watch MLB baseball...Regardless, the area is very nice and St. Pete has gone through a transition that rivals a lot of other cities around the countr…

In the spirit of "look, 4 white horses. and there are 4 of us", and with blatant apologies to Mr. Letterman, and the decade of the 90s, here are the top ten reasons for watching tonight's game (and perhaps complaining about it on a game thread) 10: Andrelton Simmons is playing short stop and batting 9: Willians Astudillo is playing first base and batting 8: Ryan Jeffers is catching and batting 7: Brent Rooker is playing left field and batting 6: Miguel Sano is hitting designatedly and batting 5: Josh Donaldson is playing 3rd base and batting 4: Rob Refsnyder is playing right field and batting 3: Jorge Polanco is playing 2nd base and…

Cubs, Curses and Canadians My cousin was a rabid Cubs fan despite growing up in Winona, MN. How rabid was she? Well, you didn’t want to be sitting in the same room with her when she watched her beloved Cubbies on TV; beer cans, ashtrays, knick-knacks and curses filled the air as the Cubbies choked, stumbled and sucked like a twenty-five cent lollipop ( youngsters may have to look that one up). Speaking of Cubs and curses, most baseball fans know of the Curse of the Billy Goat, supposedly put on the team by an irate fan after the cubs banned his goat from a Cubs game. After the Curse was issued, the Cubs for decades resembled the current Twins team; ine…

Good Morning Twins fans! We have an early Monday game today. This is a make-up game from earlier this year against the Detroit Tigers. After the ugly loss against Milwaukee yesterday the Twins will try to get back on track today against the lowly Tigers. For the rest of the year I'm somewhat hesitant to cheer for my beloved Twins. At this point being 18 games behind the White Sox I'm cheering for a better draft pick next year. However, I'd still like to see the new kids being pulled up from minors perform well and build that confidence for next year. I'm encouraging people to post comments to the Game Thread from work today (for those of us working). Make sure you l…

To get back into the post season this year, a broom or two just won't cut it. We need an industrial strength wetdry shop vac, as well as help across the board from many other teams. The Miracle Braves had more than half a season to make their comeback. We got only a month. But that's no excuse to lose faith... The Rockies did something like that in the late aughts. It isn't impossible. It just needs probability such as is only seen at the start of Tom Stoppard plays: And my humble apologies for the short intro last time i wrote one. I lost track of time while helping a friend move, and he told me to pull off to the side of the road and put it up. This woul…

The Brewers are running out a pitching trio these days that nobody wants to see in the playoffs. Corbin Burnes (3rd), Brandon Woodruff (4th), and Freddy Peralta (not qualified, but would be about 5th with like 10 more innings) all rank in the top 10 in baseball in ERA. I don't know if any of you have been paying attention, but the Twins starting staff have been slightly worse than that. Want a couple silver linings that may give a little hope for the Twins future? Here's what I got: The highest any of the 3 were ranked on prospect lists (according to baseball-reference) is 46 (Baseball America ranked Burnes there in 2019). Woodruff maxed out at 61 in 2018 (again by B…

Oh great! I get the Albers game. Plucky Andrew Albers has made his way back to the major leagues (or the Twins rotation) and will get a start tonight against the first-place Milwaukee Brewers. Albers will be 36 years old during the playoffs this season. He has absolutely no future as a major league pitcher and there is very little to suggest that he will fare well against a Brewer club that has surprised me by taking a good lead in the NL Central. Of course, you never know do you? Maybe Lucy won't pull the football away as Charlie Brown approaches, maybe the Washington Generals will defeat the Globetrotters. And so it goes. It is hard to be excited with a rotation that in…

Some things in life are bad They can really make you mad Other things just make you swear and curse When you're chewing on life's gristle Don't grumble, give a whistle And this'll help things turn out for the best And always look on the bright side of life Always look on the light side of life -“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian; Written by Eric Idle There are several positive things that can be taken from the Minnesota Twins’ 2021. Okay, some positive things. Like . . . Um . . . Well, things happened this season. Nobody on the current roster was in the film, Cats, so that’s good. Being a Minnesota …

(a late rally intro) 0. Bailey Ober (R) P 1. Max Kepler (L) RF 2. Jorge Polanco (S) 2B 3. Josh Donaldson (R) DH 4. Luis Arraez (L) 3B 5. Miguel Sano (R) 1B 6. Nick Gordon (L) CF 7. Ryan Jeffers (R) C 8. Jake Cave (L) LF 9. A. Simmons (R) SS them 0. Nick Pivetta (R) P 1. E. Hernandez (R) 2B 2. Kyle Schwarber (L) DH 3. X. Bogaerts (R) SS 4. Rafael Devers (L) 3B 5. J.D. Martinez (R) LF 6. Alex Verdugo (L) CF 7. Hunter Renfroe (R) RF 8. Travis Shaw (L) 1B 9. C. Vazquez (R) C

Myth Or Musical Once upon a time in world now far, far away but still in this galaxy, it was rumored that BoSox club owner Harry Frazee sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees in order to finance the Broadway musical “No, No, Nanette” which opened in 1919 as the non-musical “My Lady Friends”. “No, No, Nanette” the re-write, didn’t open as a musical until 1925 and was first made into a movie in 1930. Due to its popularity “No No” has been redone several times since as both a play and a film. Babe, at least so far, hasn't been redone. I guess you could say Frazee let Ruth go for a song and a dance. Odd too that today a “No No” refers to a no-hitter. Which sort …

Sorry Twins fans but the game today against the New York Yankees has been postponed due to hurricane Henri. Looks like it took an act of mother nature to save us from getting swept out of New York. Instead we got blown out and flew out before the Yankees could sweep us out. Maybe I'll write a baseball book about the Twins and Yankees matchups over the last few decades. It will be called: "Blown out, swept out and then we flew out". A total page turner of a book with in-depth interviews and recollections by former and current Twins players about their fears of playing the Yankees both at home and in New York. There would also be great interviews and recollection…

Good Morning Twins fans and welcome back to more game thread fun! After last nights beating by the Yankees hopefully the Twins come out and put the Bronx Bombers in their place. I'll be listening to the game on the radio as I have to work today. If the world's supply chain wasn't so screwed up I'd be home watching it on television. However, when we can't get materials and supplies on time, "the typical" work week gets screwed up. Kudos to anyone else that has to work today. By the way, does anyone know the name of the MLB player who holds the regular season record for most walk off hits? The way Polanco has been hammering those walk off hits recently I wonder where h…

Y'all really need to start volunteering for game threads so you don't have to read my intros twice in one week. Tonight we are playing the Yankees. Same as last night, but I'm hoping not the same as last night. Charlie Barnes is giving it a go ... he has gotten better with each outing so maybe? One can only hope. Gordon is in CF, again, and Simmons is still at SS. I'm thinking that until Buxton is back, no chance of seeing Gordon at SS, if we ever do. There is nothing more to say on that that hasn't already been said out in the forums, so I'll just leave it there. I hope we will get in all the games this weekend, but as Henri is bearing down, unless we decide to play 2 to…

I'm wiggin' out, man! I can't take the pressure! An hour to game time, and the Twins line up hasn't come out! Is Cave batting behind Sano? Will Simmons turn the line up over to Kepler? Or Garver? All i got is John Gant all alone on the mound facing this vaunted NY line up: 0. Jameson Taillon (R) 1. Luke Voit (R) DH 2. Anthony Rizzo (L) 1B 3. Aaron Judge (R) CF 4. Joey Gallo (L) LF 5. Giancarlo Stanton (R) RF 6. Rougned Odor (L) 2B 7. Andrew Velazquez (S) SS 8. Kyle Higashioka (R) C 9. Tyler Wade (L) 3B Ah, sigh! There it is! (did i just for get to upda…