Royals 2, Twins 0: Another Solid Pitching Performance Gets Wasted

[bunsen82]

Eh,  I am not going to let some early season slow bats affect what I am seeing.  What I do see is that we have some decent Starting pitching.  If Paddack can continue to improve and give us this type of performance,  we win the trade by a large margin.  You get a #3 type pitcher for 1 year of a reliever,  you take it every day of the week.  Buxton is a game changer, we need him back.  As to the rest of the team, I will give Correa a pass.   When the team is constructed for a long ball game,  and it is cold and windy,  you won't do well generally.  As the temps warm up I do expect the bats to get better.  Urshela looks decent and honestly Sanchez is better than I expected.  I am still looking at a slightly less than .500 team.  But I didn't come into this season with lofty goals.   

[Harrison Greeley III]

They really have to stop starting 8 righties vs. a lefty starter. I loved it when teams did this for Johan Santana because I knew he'd easily find a rhythm with his location and do well that night. The Twins did it for Kershaw and now they've just given Daniel Lynch a major confidence boost. They did this a lot last year and I don't recall it ever working. 

[Dave The Dastardly]

7 hours ago, Nashvilletwin said:

Seriously, things are headed south pretty fast. Turned on the game tonight and took one look at the starting lineup and couldn’t believe what I saw. Garlick is batting cleanup? Our best batting average was Urshela? Almost everybody hitting under 0.200?  It was crazy looking at how pathetic that lineup was tonight.

Let’s hope they turn this around.  But if not, at some point someone has to be held accountable. That someone includes players (and there are a lot of them - hell, there are multiple DFA candidates playing on this team), coaches, and the FO. Sorry, I am not blaming the Pohlads - they’ve done their bit.

The good news is that we should see the future in Miranda, Lewis and Martin plus others more likely sooner than later. 

 

We need to see those three NOW!!!!!

[Dave The Dastardly]

9 hours ago, tony&rodney said:

Add Royce Lewis? He can play in the outfield, infield, and DH. June is coming.

The current team will be out of it by June.

[LastOnePicked]

1 hour ago, jmlease1 said:

Really? We're going to blame the Twins utter inability to hit on the manager? I'm pretty sure he didn't swing a single bat in a game this year,

When individual players struggle, it is on them, yes. But when an entire team plays well below their capacity, that's probably on the coaching staff.

Rocco has said several times that he preaches the players go up to the plate "with a plan." That might be part of the problem. If there's too much of a "plan" going on in their minds, it might be messing with their ability just to see the ball and hit the ball.

So, yes, Rocco should be included in the blame. After an almost total roster turnover, and the team is still in last place and abysmal with RISP, he and his staff should be on the hot seat.

[ToddlerHarmon]

8 hours ago, RpR said:

Why is Larnach in there?

I thought I remembered him having a history of good AVG in the past. But mostly, I have the same problem as Rocco: I have to put nine bodies out there? Ugh

[Dave The Dastardly]

"Adalberto Mondesí brought Andrew Benintendi home on a bunt single to make it 2-0 Kansas City."

Bunting is stilled allowed? It doesn't even have a launch angle!

[ToddlerHarmon]

2 minutes ago, Dave The Dastardly said:

"Adalberto Mondesí brought Andrew Benintendi home on a bunt single to make it 2-0 Kansas City."

Bunting is stilled allowed? It doesn't even have a launch angle!

I wonder what Carew's launch angle was on bunts? They all seemed to roll to a stop exactly halfway between the catcher and the third baseman, and just on the grass. I cry when I see players with speed hit into the shift.

[Sparky55]

Hello Bryon Buxton can you please play?

[Whitey333]

Well one of Baldellis jobs is to motivate the team.  For the past year + this team has played, listless, uninspiring, boring and bad baseball.  Yes that is the managers fault.  You are right.  He can't hit for them.  But he can I still a team atmosphere.  It's obvious that letting the analytics computer manage the team isn't working.  Remember the Twins finished last place in 2021 and played very bad ball.  Also I don't know how you give Correa a break for his poor start.  They are paying him $35 million this year.  What's wrong with expecting him to produce at least somewhat how his career has gone?  I'm so tired of Baldelli telling us how well his team has played and is following the plan.  We all appreciate the start the starting pitching has had.  But I think we are all realistic and realize they aren't good enough to sustain throughout a long season.  At the moment this team is a mess.  Buxton should have been put on the 10 day DL a week ago.  Just wasted an opening for someone else to try.  Your best hitter Arraez needs to be in there everyday.  People counting on Buxton to get back and carry this team the rest of the year are going to be disappointed again.  Twins should have swept KC.

[mikelink45]

2 hours ago, rv78 said:

Rocco's brilliance or lack thereof was on display again last night. The offense continues to sputter and he has his best hitter (Arraez) sitting of the bench. I guess a .414 batting average at Kauffman stadium isn't good enough to warrant playing time there. For someone who is so into analytics how can you make the decision not to have him in the starting lineup? If righty verses lefty matchups is the only deciding factor he uses when he makes out the lineup card he is worthless. He's all about creating favorable matchups alright, even if it means benching your best players for guys that can't hit. I'm not sure how much more of his ineptness I can handle. This is bad with no end in sight.

But then we might not have had Jeffers and his 148 BA and -0.3 WAR at DH! Arraez batting 313 - but also a -0.1 WAR that is the result of a stone glove - at DH that is not a factor. 

[USNMCPO]

This team is so bad/boring that I turned off the game so my wife could watch a rerun on Hallmark channel. It was more fun.

[roger]

Buxton in the Twins lineup, Twins win a lot.  Buxton out of the lineup, Twins lose a lot.

I don't care what arm the pitcher throws with, get Arraez in the lineup....every day.  Kid should get a day rest about every ten games.  That would have him playing around 145 games.  Sitting him about half the time makes no sense to me.

[garn from vancouver]

we need Tortuga. at least then there would be some fun mixed into all of this.

we can't give correa a pass. we just can't. if i was performing as he is at my job, after getting a raise, i'd be fired. he's already looking to next year and where he'll be - it won't be here. i've seen the look on his face - it's of a man in touch with his inner talking heads - "how did i get here?"

sure baldelli's job is to inspire but he's not at the plate swinging the bat. lay down a bunt, play some small ball, get men on base, move them along. mix it up. screw the sabermetrics. (at least for now)

maybe get kevin goldstein down to talk to correa and say to him, 'come on man. just at least pretend you care. it'll all be over soon and you can move on'.

[terrydactyls]

Because baseball has given up on batting fundamentals and the desired result is home run or bust, you have more and more offensive (and I mean this in two ways) performances similar to last night.  Launch angle, exit velocity, swing plane, etc have ruined the game.  What ever happened to hit and run, stealing bases, bunting, and other strategies from the past that actually make people watch a game?  My preferred method of watching now is to DVR the game and then watch in fast forward.  If I notice the score change, I stop the DVR and rewind to see who hit a home run.  Now that is exciting baseball!  At least I don't have to worry about wasting three or four hours.  I just waste about 45 minutes.

[Trov]

Everyone on here was worried about starting pitching coming into the year.  There was a few guys they wanted us to have over who we have so far.  The few other guys have done well, but overall so has our starting pitching.  Even if we got Manea, or Rondon both we still would be losing.  

Until our bats can score any runs we will never win.  What I am most worried about is if our offense start clicking that is when our pitching will start to falter.  This is how last year went, we never had all areas firing at the same time.  If we pitched well, we could not hit.  If the starter gave us a chance to win the pen blew it.  If pen was going well and hitting was going well our starters could not get through 2 innings. 

I know it is early, but this terrible offense is not fun to watch at all. 

[PDX Twin]

This team has had a loser mentality for the last two seasons. Why? It's up to the manager and the leaders in the clubhouse to inspire some confidence. It's not happening. 

None of us knows what happens in the clubhouse, but I can't imagine that there are many smiles. Rosario and Astudillo were two Twins that had personality. They were good for the fans and probably for the players, too. Are there any real personalities in the dugout now? Or just "arms and bats."

[FanSince1961]

How about trying to generate runs however possible?  Bring back the Piranhas.

[Cap'n Piranha]

This team just doesn't seem to have any spark or fire to it.  The performance of Morrison, Lynn, and Correa is making me question the wisdom of waiting out the market to sign bargain deals on FAs who hoped for a big payday.

If what we're seeing right now is what the Twins are, there needs to be a major house-cleaning.  Falvine gone, the entire coaching staff gone, and the current core (other than Buxton) blown up.  If you get a can't-say-no offer for Buxton, you might have to do that too.

[Game7-91]

Looking for Polanco to start hitting again, last year he didnt really start hitting well until June I believe. Correa's line says he will get things together too, Comparing his splits to last few years, his hard hit rate is higher than previous years in April, but so are his strikeouts. Line drives are noticeably increased. Seems a timing thing for him, and when it starts to straighten out, I think he will begin to contribute. We dont know enough about the offense to make a judgment, other than that it is virtually impossible for them to be this bad for a prolonged period of time, even with their motley collection of AAAA types weighing down the order. Buxton has to stay healthy, Polanco and Correa are going to start to hit, Arraez will do his thing....it's 4 run per game outfit. Problem is on most nights the pitching sequence has too many holes in the chain....winning 50% of the time will be stretch but it could happen if Buck can stay off the IL and other pieces converge to the mean. But it could also be that Twins will be competing for a Top 3 draft pick in 2023. Who knows........

[jmlease1]

28 minutes ago, PDX Twin said:

This team has had a loser mentality for the last two seasons. Why? It's up to the manager and the leaders in the clubhouse to inspire some confidence. It's not happening. 

None of us knows what happens in the clubhouse, but I can't imagine that there are many smiles. Rosario and Astudillo were two Twins that had personality. They were good for the fans and probably for the players, too. Are there any real personalities in the dugout now? Or just "arms and bats."

well, this season is roughly 20 minutes old, so I'm not just this anything more than hyperbole. The two seasons  when the twins won a bazillion games and made the playoffs the twins were widely praised for the clubhouse atmosphere, and even last year the team finished the season playing competitive baseball (they didn't quit on the season even when various star players/leaders were moved out).

So do they really have a clubhouse problem, or are you looking for something to hang on Rocco that can't easily be proved or disproved?

Maybe we should exhume the corpse of Earl Weaver.

[GNess]

It is April 21st. There are many months in the season so some perspective is needed through all the gloom and foreboding on this thread.

Here are the players I am nearly 100% certain will hit to a high standard that are struggling now: 

Correa, Polanco, Buxton, Kirilloff, Urshela

Here are the players who are concerning:

Sano, Kepler

Here are players doing ok with the bat:

Arraez, Sanchez

Here are players I just don't know what will happen:

Jeffers, Larnach

The Twins will hit enough eventually.

Final point the starting pitching has been very good, yet many indicate that it won't last. 

Bleak take: Twins can't hit, the strong early pitching is a mirage and Baldelli has no idea what he is doing = another dreary losing season. 

Win Twins.

[wabene]

9 hours ago, TopTwinsFan said:

We have one of the best offenses in the league and a great manager. LMAO.

Season starting to stink. Unwatchable baseball that a competitive person cant enjoy watching.

?

Baldy Ball '22. Bring a gag bag.

Top of what?

[wabene]

4 hours ago, jmlease1 said:

Really? We're going to blame the Twins utter inability to hit on the manager? I'm pretty sure he didn't swing a single bat in a game this year, but he did stack in a ton of RH hitters into the lineup last night. It's on the players to play, and right now the hitters are really struggling.

This is the kind of game a struggling team has: no breaks. Paddack pitched well, but was unlucky. KC only hit one ball hard against him all night it seemed, but a couple of INF singles and seeing-eye singles and the scraped up 2 runs. Everything the Twins hit in the air was right at someone. Not exactly sure how the manager is supposed to fix that, but I'm sure someone will tell me.

Thank you. This is exactly what I thought. Paddack was great every hit was either a squib or the really nice, and now quite rare, perfectly placed bunt.

[jmlease1]

Just now, wabene said:

Thank you. This is exactly what I thought. Paddack was great every hit was either a squib or the really nice, and now quite rare, perfectly placed bunt.

I'm excited about his velocity from last night and overall command of the curve. If he's ticking that fastball up to 95-96 consistently and commanding the curve to pair with an already quality changeup...he may get back to being the guy the padres thought he was going to be when he first arrived. Still work to be done, but you could see why the twins wanted him last night. time will tell if the adjustments and improvement stick, but I enjoyed watching him pitch. (Smalley was pretty enamored of that curve, that's for sure.)

[wabene]

1 hour ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

This team just doesn't seem to have any spark or fire to it.  The performance of Morrison, Lynn, and Correa is making me question the wisdom of waiting out the market to sign bargain deals on FAs who hoped for a big payday.

If what we're seeing right now is what the Twins are, there needs to be a major house-cleaning.  Falvine gone, the entire coaching staff gone, and the current core (other than Buxton) blown up.  If you get a can't-say-no offer for Buxton, you might have to do that too.

C'mon now the last thing we should do is question Correa's motivation. He has 300+ million reasons to succeed.

[wabene]

16 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

I'm excited about his velocity from last night and overall command of the curve. If he's ticking that fastball up to 95-96 consistently and commanding the curve to pair with an already quality changeup...he may get back to being the guy the padres thought he was going to be when he first arrived. Still work to be done, but you could see why the twins wanted him last night. time will tell if the adjustments and improvement stick, but I enjoyed watching him pitch. (Smalley was pretty enamored of that curve, that's for sure.)

The scuttlebutt is that the Padres aren't great at developing pitching and Paddack might just be a sleeper.

[olepancoast]

Really like Paddack. I think he can be an anchor for this rotation for the next couple years.

[cheeseheadgophfan]

Trying to be positive (it's tough)......but:

1.  Paddock looked great.  Could have easily been 5 shutout innings.  Larnach had that fly ball in the first hit off the heel of his glove followed by a squibber down the 3rd base line.  The second run scored on ground ball base hits.  I thought his stuff looked great.  

2.  We hit the ball hard last night a number of times with nothing to show for it.  Merrifield made some great plays in right.  Larnach hit 2 balls right on the nuts.  We can't catch a break.  In a season, you've got to believe that will even out. 

[KnoblauchWasFramed]

I still do love the daily comeback that "it's too early in the season to worry", and it's only April, relax.  It almost reminds me of the same comebacks last year all the way into late May from people who seemed to be under the belief that the season was 12 months and just "wait for the weather to get warm and then watch out" or "wait until you see all of the brilliant trades the front office makes that'll get us right back in the mix of this weak Central Division."  

For context on the whole "it's too early" to worry about losing some winnable games here and there,  last season on April 30th the Twins were 9-15 and already 6 games back.  On May 13th they fell to 12-23 and were 10 games back.  The Twins would never be under 10 games back again the entire season.  You can say that the season was over for the Twins by game number 35, but really it was over by game 26.... in the "weakest" division in baseball.    

So this assumption that wins and losses in April don't really matter is BS and this statement should be retired because it's just wrong.