Game Score: Twins 10, Mariners 4, Bats Come Alive with Six Home Runs in Twins First Win of 2022

Liking this Stanks trade!

The breaking loose of that bats log jam was all we needed. I loved how Baldelli used his long relief in game 1 but in game 2&3 he has gone back to his old ways of using only short relief in every BP situation. After Ober was an ideal time to use Winder to get his feet wet & see what he has but Baldelli reverted to his image of himself as a chess master using only short relief & left Winder wanting. I'd like to see Baldelli develope a SP + long relief + short relief formula, keeping the rotation & short relief fresh throughout the season (Not having them burn out like prior seasons.) and giving long relief opportunity to prove themselves.

P.S. I followed the Twins via Game Day so I couldn't really see how well Pagan pitched, he seemed fine.

I'm guessing we see winder tomorrow 

Sanchez looked better at catcher receiving balls than I had expected. Nice job on the end of that relay. He positioned himself well in receiving the ball before the runner. I suppose my expectations were not very high but he didn’t stand out like Astudillo or Pinto have in the past. I am more hopeful that he can be a passable catcher.

Now, That’s Entertainment!! ?

Great interview with Buxton, "Go Twins!"

Sanchez's grand slam takes some of the sting out of Donaldson's walk off for the Yankees the other night.

Power plus decent pitching  and defense was the formula for some recent successful seasons. Good to catch a glimpse of it today.

That relay from Kirilloff to Correa to Sanchez was beautiful. Then Dick and Justin replayed it several times and explained why the throw to Correa was on the glove side of Correa and how all 3 players involved, had set themselves up for success  by Kirilloff's footwork, Correa glancing back at the runner and his footwork and Sanchez placing his legs in front of the plate, thus blocking the runner,  and catching and holding the ball.  Morneau said it takes a good first relay throw to make the second relay throw successful. It was a beautiful  play which was explained to us viewers in an excellent manner. 

Big sigh of relief.  I was worried we were going to go 0-162.  

It will be interesting to see if this opens the gates a little bit for the offense.  Overall in this series, I feel the pitching has been decent.  If we ignore the stinker of an inning that Duffey threw yesterday, the bullpen has been nearly rock solid.  All three starters have been about what I would have expected.

It was really nice to see the bats get going this afternoon.  Six homeruns from 5 players today with Arraez and Urshela getting into the action the last couple days shows that there is some power in this lineup.  It feels like this is a team that could score ten runs in about any game they play this season. 

Play of the day for me was the throw from Correa in the first to prevent Winker from scoring.  Great relay from Kirilloff and great throw to the plate.  Winker was almost to third when Kirilloff started to throw the ball from the outfield wall.  Correa has shown just with his defensive play that he is worth $30M this season.

The Donaldson trade is looking pretty good right now.  Urshela and Sanchez have shown they can contribute.  We dumped Donaldson's contract and freed up the money to get Correa.  Lastly, I never felt that Donaldson ever really fit in with this team and in this clubhouse.  Urshela, Sanchez, and Correa all seem to fit in.

7 minutes ago, baul0010 said:

Big sigh of relief.  I was worried we were going to go 0-162.  

1-161?

Nice game for the Twins. The power production is for real with the lineup, and we can definitely punish lefties. Really happy for Gary Sanchez, who missed a walkoff by no more than 2 feet the other night, to see him have a good day behind the plate (excellent tag to finish off that great relay from Correa and fine throw from Kirilloff, nearly picked off a runner at first, and looked pretty comfortable behind the plate) and drop a bomb of a home run.

I wonder if pairing with a pitcher like Ober, who works up in the zone, is going to be good for Sanchez behind the plate? Regardless, I thought he was respectable back there, and I have to wonder if getting him out of NYC is going to be really good for him.

Buxton showed exactly why we signed him to that big extension. Good grief, he's a wonderful player. When he's locked in at the plate, you can't get him out. And there's no one smoother in the OF.

Hopefully the command problems from Ober are just him getting into the groove of the season (or warmer weather, or whatever); I was surprised to see him struggling to throw strikes early and not getting ahead of hitters. Hopefully that works itself out. He finished strong, which was encouraging.

With this lineup this game could be the blueprint for a lot of games this season. Score a lot of runs with power, enough to provide a cushion for our pitching staff.

1 hour ago, minman1982 said:

It will be interesting to see if this opens the gates a little bit for the offense.  Overall in this series, I feel the pitching has been decent.  If we ignore the stinker of an inning that Duffey threw yesterday, the bullpen has been nearly rock solid.  All three starters have been about what I would have expected.

It was really nice to see the bats get going this afternoon.  Six homeruns from 5 players today with Arraez and Urshela getting into the action the last couple days shows that there is some power in this lineup.  It feels like this is a team that could score ten runs in about any game they play this season. 

Play of the day for me was the throw from Correa in the first to prevent Winker from scoring.  Great relay from Kirilloff and great throw to the plate.  Winker was almost to third when Kirilloff started to throw the ball from the outfield wall.  Correa has shown just with his defensive play that he is worth $30M this season.

The Donaldson trade is looking pretty good right now.  Urshela and Sanchez have shown they can contribute.  We dumped Donaldson's contract and freed up the money to get Correa.  Lastly, I never felt that Donaldson ever really fit in with this team and in this clubhouse.  Urshela, Sanchez, and Correa all seem to fit in.

I agree with your astute assessments.

The pitching has been pretty good with the obvious exception of the "Duffey the closer" experience.   Of course,  we haven't seen Bundy and Archer yet (I am skeptical - please prove me wrong).  I really think that when this team hits, they win.

33 minutes ago, Twins_Fan_For_Life said:

The pitching has been pretty good with the obvious exception of the "Duffey the closer" experience.   Of course,  we haven't seen Bundy and Archer yet (I am skeptical - please prove me wrong).  I really think that when this team hits, they win.

Besides Duffey the Bullpen has been amazing, 12 1/3 and 0 runs, but lets not get ahead of ourselves yet on the starters, yes it was their first game, but only Ober made the 5th and his ERA is 7.20, Ryan's ERA is 4.50 which I would assume everybody including me are expecting that to be sub 4 this year. Gray is 3.86 which is good. (If Bundy, Archer and Paddack can do what Ryan did (or better) I would say it was a pretty successful first time though the 6 starters.

I am glad the Twins finally won a game. They could easily be undefeated at this point if things had fallen the right way. That being said I am disappointed. I know I am in the minority, but I hate watching a game where all the runs are via the home run. To me that is a boring game to watch. I realize that is where the league has gone. Watching players either hit a home run or strike out makes for a long uninteresting game. At least for me. I want the Twins to win any way they can, but baseball in general is coming down to me just looking at the scores and standings to see what the teams have done.

7 hours ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Besides Duffey the Bullpen has been amazing, 12 1/3 and 0 runs, but lets not get ahead of ourselves yet on the starters, yes it was their first game, but only Ober made the 5th and his ERA is 7.20, Ryan's ERA is 4.50 which I would assume everybody including me are expecting that to be sub 4 this year. Gray is 3.86 which is good. (If Bundy, Archer and Paddack can do what Ryan did (or better) I would say it was a pretty successful first time though the 6 starters.

By the end of the year, every guy in the 'pen will give up two runs in an inning at least once.  Let's get over this.

12 hours ago, Unwinder said:

Sanchez's grand slam takes some of the sting out of Donaldson's walk off for the Yankees the other night.

Donaldson's "walk off" was a seeing-eye dribbler that squeaked through the infield, after a man had automatically been put on 2nd base for him.

Sanchez breathed life into a winless team with a 2-out grand slam, rallied the crowd with the no-doubt blast. I'll take that any day over a weak ground ball through the shift.

6 hours ago, Loops said:

I am glad the Twins finally won a game. They could easily be undefeated at this point if things had fallen the right way. That being said I am disappointed. I know I am in the minority, but I hate watching a game where all the runs are via the home run. To me that is a boring game to watch. I realize that is where the league has gone. Watching players either hit a home run or strike out makes for a long uninteresting game. At least for me. I want the Twins to win any way they can, but baseball in general is coming down to me just looking at the scores and standings to see what the teams have done.

I hear ya - I mean, that's really a much longer discussion than we can have on a post-game thread about the 3rd game of the year. Short response is that honestly I think they're going to have to move the mound back, but it'll probably be 10 years before they are going to even seriously discuss it.

Following the recent death of C.W. McCall, it’s nice to get a big 10-4 with the win. 

I know early, but this team offense is reminding me of 2019 team.  A ton of HR.  I wonder if we are back to some juiced baseballs following the lockout to increase HR and fan excitement.  Maybe it is just small sample size, but some of those bombs are crazy deep.