Article: BAL 3, MIN 2: Opening D’oh!

[Platoon]

I am not sure the offense showed up in the ninth inning? An error? I think two walks? And a fly ball hit too poorly to catch? Well that was offensive. Btw, is it just me, or does Castro seem to use his glove way too much, and his body way too little on balls in the dirt off to his sides? One last thought. I had no problem with Buxton hitting in the bottom of the order. But, if you want him to be "the guy" then there is no way you hit for him in the ninth. I could even see it if you had a Jim Thome type, but hitting RG for him is borderline embarrassing. And, no I don't think Grossman's scorching pop up made the decision any better. Sometimes your just lucky enough to hit a ball so poorly, no one can catch it.

[Han Joelo]

Not sure how much I trust Hildenberger right now.  As the radio team was pointing out, the Orioles were trying to give up an out (sac bunt) and he couldn't throw a strike.  I like him, he'll be fine (I hope) and part of learning to win is learning from losses.

 

Rosario may have made a blunder; I have no idea.  Going purely off my gut, it felt like he showed up to play, and has achieved veteran status.  I think he becomes a bigger part of the heart and soul of this team moving forward.

[tvagle]

Game hinged on a fundamental play that wasn't made by a player that is supposed to provide plus defense at his position...Castro

 

Attempting to pick a left-handed breaking ball in the dirt is not acceptable especially on third strike

 

If it hit the plate all the more reason to be in position to block the ball rather than to try and pick it

 

Castro did wake up in time to make a couple good blocks

 

So ends the fundamentals of catching rant...I feel better now

[DaveW]

Yeah catcher is a position I think they need to figure out how to upgrade in the mid to long term.

[slash129]

I had a good afternoon. Went to the Sports Page in Bloomington. Hrbek happened to be there. Kids played darts and pool. Everyone cheered when LaMarre crossed the plate and Rodney induced the GIDP to the five man infield. Everyone groaned and cursed when Jones hit the bomb. I was deflated, but then I smirked when I remembered Jones was on my fantasy team. Hrbek signed napkins for my youngest and our visitor from Japan. I found an '87 Topps Hrbek in the basement for our visitor to pair with his napkin auto. Awesome .... at least 161 to go.

[jkcarew]

Also not a fan of Rodney in a closer role...not for a team that expects to win a division or wild card.  In a game like this, you were going to use him sooner or later, though.

 

Odorizzi encouraging.  Addison Reed very encouraging, but overall bullpen doesn't seem poised to be a strength.  As a team, the offense should come around. 

[yarnivek1972]

Game hinged on a fundamental play that wasn't made by a player that is supposed to provide plus defense at his position...Castro

 

Attempting to pick a left-handed breaking ball in the dirt is not acceptable especially on third strike

 

If it hit the plate all the more reason to be in position to block the ball rather than to try and pick it

 

Castro did wake up in time to make a couple good blocks

 

So ends the fundamentals of catching rant...I feel better now

I looked up the number of wild pitches charged to the Astros during Castro’s tenure way back when Castro signed. As I recall, they were considerably higher than the rest of the league. My understanding is that his set up for framing puts him in bad position to block pitches.

 

Personally, I feel that blocking pitches is substantially more important. It’s something that Kurt Suzuki excelled at btw.

Edited March 30, 2018 by yarnivek1972

[Monkeypaws]

 

Also not a fan of Rodney in a closer role...not for a team that expects to win a division or wild card.  In a game like this, you were going to use him sooner or later, though.

 

Odorizzi encouraging.  Addison Reed very encouraging, but overall bullpen doesn't seem poised to be a strength.  As a team, the offense should come around. 

1 pitch - small sample size. Well if he fails, Reed steps right in, or even Hildenberger.

 

Not worried about it ... at all.

[Tom Froemming]

 

Well, we gave it a good run. Not our year. 

Whaddya think we could get for Dozier?

 

Nothing really to worry about based on this game. 

Yup, we got 161 more of these jokers to go.

 

At least Adam Jones is on my fantasy team!!

Nobody cares about your fantasy team.

 

Buxton's line for the game looked ok, but I think he had about 6 swings-and-misses in 7 swings. We don't need to see games like that from him and Sano.

He did not look comfortable against Bundy. 

 

5 hits against a rather pedestrian starting pitcher is a little concerning

Bundy is better than pedestrian, but the bats did not look good.

 

Yay ... post game wraps are back ... thanks, Tom!

Thank you Carole

 

Uh. No mention of Rosario still not being all that baseball smart? To me, that was the lowlight. He got himself out. I don't blame the hitters for struggling against Bundy, that is going to happen. But at this point in his career.... You'd think he would learn.

Rosie slid into first, dumb move, but a LOT happened in this game. The goal is to keep these things fairly tight.

 

Rodney: shouldn’t be closer or in high leverage. Wasn’t even a 1.0 WAR pitcher last year. Needs to be a middle innings guy until h proves himself at age 41. 0-1 so far this year.
molitor : still makes a lot of bad decisions by not managing based on situation or deviating from his plan.

I think Rodney will be fine if he's only asked to pitch one clean inning. I don't think thing's will go well when he is asked to pitch in two separate frames in the same game like today.

 

I'm not one for superstition, but I'll still throw this out there: in 2016 the Twins also opened the season by losing 3-2 at Baltimore on a walk off.

LALALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALA

[Seth Stohs]

 

Btw, is it just me, or does Castro seem to use his glove way too much, and his body way too little on balls in the dirt off to his sides?

 

I was on the Twins Daily twitter account throughout the game today, and I 100% agree on your Castro comment. On Duke's first strikeout, yes, the ball hit the plate (which tells you how good Duke's pitch was), but Castro just stabbed at it. The rest of the inning he got back to actually trying to block pitches... But to me, that was the play that bugged me, way more than anything else in the game. 

[yarnivek1972]

Bundy has a career 105 ERA+. I don’t know to describe that other than pedestrian.

[Seth Stohs]

 

 

Rosario may have made a blunder; I have no idea.  Going purely off my gut, it felt like he showed up to play, and has achieved veteran status.  I think he becomes a bigger part of the heart and soul of this team moving forward.

 

Yeah, I thought Rosario had a solid game. Robbed of a homer. Another caught at the wall in left. Good defense. The stolen base. yeah, he slid feet-first into first base, but that wasn't so bad. He was avoiding a collision in the way that would best keep the likelihood of injury low. He keeps playing like he did today and he'll be in for another very good season. 

[Tom Froemming]

 

Just to clarify, how old is Rodney?

Rodney is 41 years young

 

Not sure how much I trust Hildenberger right now.  As the radio team was pointing out, the Orioles were trying to give up an out (sac bunt) and he couldn't throw a strike.  I like him, he'll be fine (I hope) and part of learning to win is learning from losses.

Hildy warmed up in the fifth inning as Odorizzi's pitch count was on the rise. I don't think it's very often that a reliever warms up, sits down for over an hour, then warms up and pitches again. I think that could easily explain his struggles to find the zone. Maybe I'm wrong.

 

Game hinged on a fundamental play that wasn't made by a player that is supposed to provide plus defense at his position...Castro

 

Attempting to pick a left-handed breaking ball in the dirt is not acceptable especially on third strike

 

If it hit the plate all the more reason to be in position to block the ball rather than to try and pick it

 

Castro did wake up in time to make a couple good blocks

 

So ends the fundamentals of catching rant...I feel better now

Yeaaaaaah, that sucked.

 

 

 

 I was deflated, but then I smirked when I remembered Jones was on my fantasy team. 

Someone prepare my catapult. We've got someone to launch out of Twins Territory

[Seth Stohs]

 

Bundy has a career 105 ERA+. I don’t know to describe that other than pedestrian.

 

He finally got healthy last year and he's about to reach the potential he's had unfortunately derailed by injury. He pitched very well today. 

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

I was on the Twins Daily twitter account throughout the game today, and I 100% agree on your Castro comment. On Duke's first strikeout, yes, the ball hit the plate (which tells you how good Duke's pitch was), but Castro just stabbed at it. The rest of the inning he got back to actually trying to block pitches... But to me, that was the play that bugged me, way more than anything else in the game. 

Castro has mentioned that when he's framing, it's first and foremost in his mind, sometimes to the detriment of other things. I wonder if this is an ugly side effect of his framing.

[bird]

 

5 hits against a rather pedestrian starting pitcher is a little concerning.

 

Bundy wasn't pedestrian today by any measure. He pitched like a guy who deserved to be the 4th overall pick in his draft year, which he was.

[Doomtints]

 

Bundy has a career 105 ERA+. I don’t know to describe that other than pedestrian.

 

Being a #3 is pedestrian? I guess so....

[bluechipper]

People are upset about Rosario sliding into 1st? Way to nitpick.

[Mike Sixel]

People are upset about Rosario sliding into 1st? Way to nitpick.

Not upset. Just curious, does he not have a reputation for interesting decisions? Did we not have whole threads on it last year, and how he needed to mature? But not even a little upset. It's a site to talk about baseball.

[Rosterman]

You have to blame the offense. The Twins offense was light, but Baltimore was even worse. Like people say, mistakes win the game. If that strikeout had held.

 

Interesting use of the bench. Lose Morrison and Buxton for an extra inning game.

 

Molitor could've really played the matchups, and had Rogers as the pitcher to go more than an inning (or so) but didn't./ Two lefties sitting in the pen. With an off day Friday, all eight arms were eligible for some throwing.

 

161 more to go.

 

Nice job by Odorizzi.

[OldTimeTwinkie]

It appeared Hildenberg had a rough spring. Send him down to get it worked out. These games count.

[Seth Stohs]

 

Castro has mentioned that when he's framing, it's first and foremost in his mind, sometimes to the detriment of other things. I wonder if this is an ugly side effect of his framing.

 

It might be because he does it all the time. He's a good framer, but he's a poor blocker and an average thrower. 

[KirbyDome89]

Hildenberger looked shaky. Congrats to Rodney for pitching out of the jam but he couldn't record 1 full inning before giving up a homer. Duke was anything but fine, it honestly looked like he was throwing AT home plate rather than Castro's mitt. We can get on Castro for trying to backhand a pitch that was bounced but IMO that isn't exactly fair. We're pissed at him when in reality if Duke just throws the ball anywhere that isn't into the f****** ground it isn't an issue. 

 

Yes, it's one game, but the above concerns me a hell of a lot more than anything the offense didn't do...

[Brock Beauchamp]

 

It might be because he does it all the time. He's a good framer, but he's a poor blocker and an average thrower. 

Yeah, that was kind of my point. He's preoccupied with framing on almost every pitch, which diminishes his ability to react to things like balls in the dirt or baserunners.

[tvagle]

 

Yeah catcher is a position I think they need to figure out how to upgrade in the mid to long term.

 

One word to solve this issueL JT Realmuto

[tvagle]

 

I was on the Twins Daily twitter account throughout the game today, and I 100% agree on your Castro comment. On Duke's first strikeout, yes, the ball hit the plate (which tells you how good Duke's pitch was), but Castro just stabbed at it. The rest of the inning he got back to actually trying to block pitches... But to me, that was the play that bugged me, way more than anything else in the game. 

 

Thought I was over that JV attempt...agree with you 100%...not an $8Million play

[Mike Sixel]

One word to solve this issueL JT Realmuto

I certainly have been pushing that! It's not like he's a rental, and he's a star at a position where they have little to no depth....

[tvagle]

 

Hildenberger looked shaky. Congrats to Rodney for pitching out of the jam but he couldn't record 1 full inning before giving up a homer. Duke was anything but fine, it honestly looked like he was throwing AT home plate rather than Castro's mitt. We can get on Castro for trying to backhand a pitch that was bounced but IMO that isn't exactly fair. We're pissed at him when in reality if Duke just throws the ball anywhere that isn't into the f****** ground it isn't an issue. 

 

Yes, it's one game, but the above concerns me a hell of a lot more than anything the offense didn't do...

 

Duke did exactly what he's supposed to do...throw pitches that appear to be in the zone then dart out of it for swinging strikes

 

Castro's job is to block swing and miss strikes in the dirt

 

If Duke throws the ball in the zone bad things happen...like two run triples to a guy who was way overmatched by mediocre fastballs up in the zone

 

 

 

[Seth Stohs]

 

One word to solve this issueL JT Realmuto

 

Is it wrong that my first thought when reading this comment was... "Is that one word, or two, or three words?" 

 

I don't see any reason to make that deal unless Castro is the player going to the Marlins. Castro and Garver are fine. No sense in Garver going back to AAA. 

[tvagle]

Castro has mentioned that when he's framing, it's first and foremost in his mind, sometimes to the detriment of other things. I wonder if this is an ugly side effect of his framing.

 

It might be because he does it all the time. He's a good framer, but he's a poor blocker and an average thrower.

 

 

Yeah, that was kind of my point. He's preoccupied with framing on almost every pitch, which diminishes his ability to react to things like balls in the dirt or baserunners.

 

 

 

Why so much concern with Castro's interest in farming...if he's preoccupied with the late spring, current market for livestock or when he'll be able to plant his soybeans maybe he shouldn't be a professional baseball player   

 

edit...couldn't multiquote (more than likely my fault) and    at :rollseyes:

Edited March 30, 2018 by tvagle