CLE 9, MIN 8: Twins Fight Back, Fall Short

The baseball gods are fickle. As stated, pitching is great, no hitting. Pitching suddenly stinks, the bats come alive.

All teams deal with injuries and hot and cold streaks. But this is ridiculous. Castro plays hurt and stinks at the plate before going out for the year. Polanco and Santana out before the season even starts. Sano with a crazy off season and then hurt. Buxton hurt, and still hurt, out a second time. Mauer out. Guys starting cold as can be, even if warming up some now.

Even with injuries, still enough talent available to not be this bad offensively when the pitching has been so good.

Bright spot? Like a lot of times last season, there appears to be some fight in this team. Despite frustrating close losses and comebacks that fall short, it doesn't appear to be a loss of spirit on the club. Could some of the fight we've been seeing recently begin to even our karma? Could the baseball gods decide enough is enough and begin to smile on the Twins with a new month beginning tomorrow?

Let's hope so. June baby! 4 months left to play ball!

Damn. 3 outings in a row Addison Reed has given up the game. Stats still look good, though, if you like your stats. Tonight, an 86 mph hanging slider. right. down. the. middle.

I thought Reed was the best signing of the offseason, but he's certainly having some miserable moments so far.

This is becoming a lost season that had so much potential. Nothing left to do except keep playing, realize it's a long season, the breaks will start falling our way, and these guys have a lot of talent.

Deflating.

Welcome to June.  Another month and the story seems to be changing again.  But the fact that we have now flipped our issues from hitting to pitching leaves us in the same place - losing.  We lost when we did not hit, we lost when we did not pitch, we lost on the road and now we lost at home.  

Reed has really let us down recently and that stands out because he was supposed to be our steady hand in the BP.  But other than that it is hard to make comments.  We are 22 - 30.  We are not in third place in our weak division and KC is just 2 behind us while we are 6.5 behind the Indians.  And we are 10 behind in the Wild Card standings.

We need to rattle off a 14 game winning streak to begin to regain significance. 

The question is quickly becoming how much do you tear down, or do you try firing Molly first. Season is probably lost. Next few months will determine how good this FO is.

I think the longer we try and fool ourselves into thinking the Twins are just victims of 'bad luck', the more frustrating the season will be. At some point it becomes too painful and frustrating when you go into every game thinking "we NEED this game!" only to watch the team find a new way to extend a losing streak.

There's been some positive chatter about the bats waking up. Why don't they wake up early for a change? The Twins aren't taking any leads, they are constantly playing from behind. Maybe the bats aren't waking up...more like the other team is ahead 10-zip and starts throwing pitches down the middle for a while to move the game along. Even the bright spots lose their sparkle if you look closely.

The only possible way the season turns around is if Molitor is fired, but it seems everyone in the organization is too afraid to pull the trigger. That's the danger of hiring a hometown guy, who aside from 2 months last year has been a disaster as a manager. I think we should look forward to the July trade deadline, and the call up of Nick Gordon and perhaps a couple of young pitchers.

What's good on Netflix? The ladyfriend and I started watching "The Crown" the other night...it's not bad, if you like slow-moving British television with a dramatic musical score. I actually think it's OK but I'm hoping to find something else that might add a little more excitement to the evenings while I'm not watching the Twins.

Another fun tidbit: Last night's loss dropped the Twins to 3-12 in one-run games (.200 winning percentage). Last season, I believe the Rangers had the worst record in one-run games at 13-24 (.351).

 

In four seasons under Paul Molitor, the Twins are 54-79 (.406) in one-run games. Cleveland under Terry Francona? They're 127-102 (.555) in one-run games.

This is an interesting point. It seems like there are some groups of players/managers (i.e., teams) that always find a way to win the close ones; there are others that seem to be content with "oh well, we came close." The last two days have supported my suspicion that this year's Twins are the latter.

Does it come back to the discussion of a few days ago about "character"?

When the pitching is good, the bats go cold. When a starter gets shelled, the offense ignites. What is going on here?

This is a longtime Twins tradition. Even in their playoff years this would happen.

Another fun tidbit: Last night's loss dropped the Twins to 3-12 in one-run games (.200 winning percentage). Last season, I believe the Rangers had the worst record in one-run games at 13-24 (.351).

 

In four seasons under Paul Molitor, the Twins are 54-79 (.406) in one-run games. Cleveland under Terry Francona? They're 127-102 (.555) in one-run games.

This does not equate to Francona being a better manager than Molitor. The last 4 seasons Cleveland's record was 362 wins vs. 284 losses (.560 win percentage), while the Twins had 297 wins and 357 losses (.454 win percentage)...plus Cleveland's FO gave the Indians arguably the best relief corps , while the Twins had arguably the worst. The relievers on the team had a lot to do with one run wins and one run losses. I submit the credit/blame lies in the front offices, not the field managers. But then Falvey was with the Indians FO part of that time and now with the Twins FO...I don't know how to factor that variable.

Sano's homer barely made it out, yet, Sano did not run out of the box. He lollygagged and watched it and finally started toward first. What is wrong with this guy? RUN OUT OF THE BOX!!

This is a longtime Twins tradition. Even in their playoff years this would happen.

Even more inclusive, this is a long time losing team's tradition. If a team is losing, it is a universal condition. Following one team so closely, it is easy to think these things just happen to the team of interest.