Game Score: Twins 2, Dodgers 7, Atrocious Bullpen and Quiet Bats Dampen Archer's Debut

2 hours ago, Whitey333 said:

Felt sorry for Winder.  Very difficult circumstances to throw him out against such a good team in crummy weather in his debut.  Stupid for Baldelli not to use him in one of the four games against Mariners for his MLB debut.  Good first game for Archer.  He looked good.  It's going to be interesting to see today's starting lineup.  With Baldellis propensity to sit players and baby his favorite players, I wouldn't be surprised to see the batboys in there. 

I thought the 4 run lead in Monday's game was a good time to get him in for an inning or maybe even two against a Mariner's lineup that hadn't looked all that impressive yet.  Rocco seemed to be managing that game as if the lead was more like two runs.  For someone who comes from the Ray's school of thought it sure does take him a long time to have any trust in young bullpen arms.

The game before also would have been good, though I think he was still trying to get some of the other arms into a game, so I understand that one more.

Winder definitely didn't seem to have conviction behind his pitches last night.  I think there was really only one squared up which was the foul ball.  Mostly it seemed like his stuff was good enough to generate weak or medium contact when it was in the zone, he just needed to get it in the zone more.

27 minutes ago, TwinsAce said:

Some good quotes in the Bundy article by Hayes at the Athletic yesterday regarding pitch count limits, etc.
“We have a bigger statement to make,” Bundy said. “Every guy in the rotation can go deeper into games and we will, going forward. We’ve just got to be built up to that and do it safely. At some point, you’ll see all five, six of us going deeper in games.”

https://theathletic.com/3244833/2022/04/12/twins-starter-dylan-bundy-is-ready-to-work-deeper-into-games-after-masterful-debut/?source=dailyemail&campaign=601983

I think most pitchers would like to pitch longer. I believe Archer would want to pitch 9 even if his arm was falling off. As the 2020 season shows that Bundy is a good pitcher and the 2021 season also shows us that he doesn't have the arm to sustain a full season of pitching much more than 5 innings.

Archer has proved that he can pitch 200 innings/ season but not pitching much the last 2 1/2 seasons plus starting late for ST, I'd use caution not to over extend him too soon. For Ryan and Ober hasn't pitched a lot yet, I'd also be cautious not over using them.

At the same I don't like to see Baldelli over use our short relief because this tends them to blow up and creates injury. Again I'm advocating the increase in use of a rotating long relief corp. I know many don't like this philosophy, but I believe this is the recipe of bringing up more pitching pospects for evalution and have the rotation & short relief strong, healthy and rested for the post season.

2 hours ago, Mark G said:

What "dampened Archer's debut" was the fact he was only allowed to go 4 innings and 63 pitches on a cool night when he was throwing fine.  I know this is only 5 games so far, but the starters have pitched 22.2 innings and the BP has pitched 22.1.  The starters have thrown 4 pretty fine games out of the 5 and should have been allowed to own their game.  When plan A is using 4-6 pitchers (or more) every time out we should not expect every pitcher to be on their game every time out.  When a starter is on theirs let them pitch!!  

I have a feeling that with the slightly squeezed season and fewer days off teams will be playing in the rain a lot more than usual trying to get the games in.  We may have to get used to nights like last night.  

I hate season innings limits and don't care for game pitch limits but I do believe you have to build up to it.   None of these guys pitched more than 4 innings in a start during spring training.     If this were June, I would expect Archer to go 7 innings with the efficiency he showed.  

OBI

One Bad Inning. Even though it felt worse, that's all it was.

One Bad Inning.

Archer was effective last night, but not great.  He was all over the place with command.  His velo was up from recent years, which is a plus, but he will need to get his command back or some games he will get blown up bad. 

So much to unwind.  Listening to the radio announcers - this game was a preview of the post season - I agree, we lost again.  

Everyone has dissected the big issues - Winder was misused, starters should go  5 - 6 innings - the overuse of BP is ridiculous.

The question in another posting was whether Arreaz deserved to start - only at DH - his glove has turned to stone this year. 

The BP without Rogers and Alcala is not a championship caliber.  Hopefully Duffey comes back strong and Duran keeps that arm healthy.  The rest seem mediocre.

By the way, Garver is batting fourth and doing really well with Texas - of course we have Sanchez - the whiff king.  Talk about catchers framing, his bat is framing the opponents and making them look great.  Do we know if Sanchez and Sano has a bet going on the most Ks?  

2 hours ago, Karbo said:

Once again, Rocco gets an F for bullpen management. Can't blame the loss on that, but really, why would anyone put a rookie in for his debut against that team, on a night like that? Rocco, you should be ashamed of yourself!

I have to agree. Baseball is baseball and different things go right and wrong every night, but the most consistent reaction to Twins games is that Rocco brought in the wrong pitchers at the wrong time. Duffey in the ninth in game 2, our best high-leverage pitchers with a 4-run lead in game 4, NOT using Winder with that lead in game 4, pulling Archer early, then bringing Winder in for his MAJOR LEAGUE DEBUT in a TIE GAME against the FREAKING DODGERS. Nothing makes any sense and I am sure, absolutely convinced, at this point, based on three years of evidence, that Baldelli can't handle the moment-to-moment decision-making required of a major-league manager.

1 hour ago, TwinsAce said:

I think it is key to remember how early in the season we are...We are at the standard March spring training phase, with most starters expecting 1-2 more starts before the regular season starts.  I think the Twins are doing just fine and are being smart in their usage of their pitchers so far.  (Especially when arguably our biggest concern with Archer is staying healthy.)  I would expect their innings to increase as the season goes on.

I would respectfully disagree.  Last year Berrios was the only pitcher on the roster who pitched more than 110 innings which would suggest that the innings will not exceed anything near what we would hope for.  This organization simply does not believe in the traditional starter/reliever role (see bullpen games).   Even in spring training pitchers are allowed to stretch out as the spring goes along so they are ready for the big time.  This team has suggested they might even go with a 6 man rotation for the first few times around; how does that suggest the innings will increase?  63 pitches is a later spring training start, not a first regular season start regardless of how long spring training is.  

I know I am beating my head against a brick wall here; I am a minority in the belief that starters have a role, and that role is to own his game unless he gets bombed or until he runs out of gas, and if he runs out of gas at 63 pitches..........beam me up, Scotty.  

26 minutes ago, Dantes929 said:

I hate season innings limits and don't care for game pitch limits but I do believe you have to build up to it.   None of these guys pitched more than 4 innings in a start during spring training.     If this were June, I would expect Archer to go 7 innings with the efficiency he showed.  

Ray went 7 on opening day, short spring or not.  Why are our guys held to a lower standard of building up to it?

None of these guys pitched more than 4 innings in spring training for the very reason I am railing against.  The organization simply doesn't believe in the traditional starter/reliever roles.  And I know I am the lone (or close to it) voice crying out in the wilderness over this, so I should probably just shut up and accept the new generation of baseball gods, but I can't help it.    

17 minutes ago, singlesoverwalks said:

I have to agree. Baseball is baseball and different things go right and wrong every night, but the most consistent reaction to Twins games is that Rocco brought in the wrong pitchers at the wrong time. Duffey in the ninth in game 2, our best high-leverage pitchers with a 4-run lead in game 4, NOT using Winder with that lead in game 4, pulling Archer early, then bringing Winder in for his MAJOR LEAGUE DEBUT in a TIE GAME against the FREAKING DODGERS. Nothing makes any sense and I am sure, absolutely convinced, at this point, based on three years of evidence, that Baldelli can't handle the moment-to-moment decision-making required of a major-league manager.

Amen.

27 minutes ago, singlesoverwalks said:

I have to agree. Baseball is baseball and different things go right and wrong every night, but the most consistent reaction to Twins games is that Rocco brought in the wrong pitchers at the wrong time. Duffey in the ninth in game 2, our best high-leverage pitchers with a 4-run lead in game 4, NOT using Winder with that lead in game 4, pulling Archer early, then bringing Winder in for his MAJOR LEAGUE DEBUT in a TIE GAME against the FREAKING DODGERS. Nothing makes any sense and I am sure, absolutely convinced, at this point, based on three years of evidence, that Baldelli can't handle the moment-to-moment decision-making required of a major-league manager.

And adding on to that, you might use the opener strategy or the "low starter innings" strategy if your bullpen is a strength, like we think of the classic Rays teams that first tried the "opener" strategy. It really doesn't make sense in the Twins' case, where it currently looks like the starting rotation is relatively strong compared to the bullpen.

Simplified basic pitching management that we all know: You want to send out your best pitcher available at the moment. A few complicating (and also obvious) factors: pitchers get tired and therefore less effective as they pitch more, so your "best pitcher" available changes over time, and of course you don't want to over-stress your pitchers and cause injury, which leads to the typical strategies of having high-leverage and low-leverage pitchers, like a "long man" to cover innings where you are losing badly, so you can save stress on high-leverage pitchers, and lower-quality relievers you bring in when you are down a run or two or leading big, etc.

Rocco has trouble selecting his best available pitcher on the fly. In the 5th inning yesterday, there was much more reason to be confident in Archer than Winder, and really little reason to think that another inning was going to injure Archer. It was a high-leverage moment because the game was tied, and it was a no-brainer to leave Archer in there based on what our eyes could see. The best path probably would have been to send Archer out for the 5th, with a higher-leverage reliever warming up in case the 5th inning started to go south on Archer.

It just seems like Baldelli maps his pitchers out ahead of time and sticks to the plan regardless of the information he's getting from the game itself. He assumed Archer would be gassed and struggling to contain the Dodgers after 4 innings, so he planned to bring in a reliever in the 5th inning. He didn't change his plan based on the actual game-time information that Archer was doing well after 4 innings. And he probably pre-planned bringing in Winder, which would make sense in a low-leverage situation where the Dodgers had shelled Archer - something that certainly seemed like a very real possibility before the game. But it made no sense in the situation.

I know I'm beating a dead horse. But actually, it's not a dead horse, because Rocco is still out there managing games for us, so, he's a live horse, and I'm beating him, end of post.

2 hours ago, 2wins87 said:

I agree on Arraez DHing, but I don't really think Urshela needs to be DHing much.

I hear you, but I suppose when it comes to right-handed DHs, I'd prefer Urshela rather than Sanchez.

I could tell this game went pear-shaped because they were still playing when we left Target Center. Get 'em today!

To me that's why I have problems with Baldelli.  He's locked in to his pregame plan and is unwilling and/ or incapable of making in game adjustments.  With all the money spent and players added it will be interesting to see how long of a leash he has.  Yes he won two division titles his first two years. But everything went right then.  Players had career years.  Now that things don't go perfectly we can see his style.  It's boring childish baseball.  Today as Baldelli follows his script, the Twins will lose to Dodgers to fall to 2-4. The bottom line at the major league level is to win games.there isn't other level for players to progress to. This is it.  It isn't meant to be a minor league playground for players to develop.

I agree with you!  The new generation of baseball gods don't realize or care that their new game is boring and it's destroying the game.  MLB attendance and tv ratings has been on the decline for the past few years.  It's a well known fact:. Look it up.  The current version of MLB is nearly unwatchable.  Baldeis Twins even more so!!

What we saw in the game tonight was a true contending team and one that thinks they can contend. 

Although the game seemed tight thru the first few innings, as both starters held their own, we saw a breakdown when the Twins went to the bullpen. Rather than play to win, they played with the master-plan that so-and-so works now and we hope he gives us what we want. And we will give guys time to pitch and play, and......man...look at the Twins that aren't hitting really NOT hit against great pitching.

First major league game for Josh Winder on a cold rainy night. Against the Dodgers. Well, guess what. You gotta throw strikes. You can play the corners and be cute with your pitches. Of course, you are facing major league batters which means unless you really know what you are doing, they will probably make contact if you do throw a strike. He learned a lot, got out of the inning. Now that he ahs the experience, he will (hopefully) be a fine piece of the team's future.

The epic was taking advantage of the new kid on the base paths. Someday we may actually see the Twins have a running game.

Winder got out of the inning amazingly with a bad called third strike, and wo hard hit flies, not to mention the near homerun foul. Sitting in the stands, I told my wife "this is a guy who can give the Twins innings." Unfortuantely, he didn't...and we got to see a patchwork bullpen when the starter can't go five.

Of course, it was a wet night. Should the game have been stopped after six and continued the next day? How much "wet" can you have, showing up in fielding errors and low command of the ball, before the umpires see that it is futile to play in a drizzle?

But saw little confidence as Twins ran thru their bullpen. You realize that the pen has a few arms that are in no way the future of the Twins. Even hoping to get a second inning out Pagan, which you don't do on a cold wet night making a guy sit in the dugout.

Again, the Dodgers just watched the bullpen try and be cute rather than try and command the count and the strikezone. Nine walks don't win you games if your own bats are silenced by superior pitching.

.

Sanchez was horrible at the plate, making swings we wouldn't wish on Sano. Talk about totally overmatched, as pitchers should be when in command of the plate.

The Dodgers are an expensive and quite good ballclub. Cotton being released the next day tells you all you need to know about the Twins.

Was at the game with great seats. Shooting picture thru the netting, they come out looking like a painting.

21 hours ago, Mark G said:

Ray went 7 on opening day, short spring or not.  Why are our guys held to a lower standard of building up to it?

None of these guys pitched more than 4 innings in spring training for the very reason I am railing against.  The organization simply doesn't believe in the traditional starter/reliever roles.  And I know I am the lone (or close to it) voice crying out in the wilderness over this, so I should probably just shut up and accept the new generation of baseball gods, but I can't help it.    

I am mostly with you.     There shouldn't be any set formula or strict policy.   I don't care for season innings limits.    Pitchers should stay active and loose between innings and pitch counts in an inning is probably more important than for a game.   Meaning 80 pitches in 4 innings is probably worse than 100 pitches over 7 innings.        Pitchers definitely should have been working on arm strength and endurance during the lockout.  On the surface though, Archer seems to be a poor poster child to support your position given he barely pitched in 2021.     Plus, there is the flip side which is if Archer had gone out there for another inning and gave up a walk, a single and a dinger I would bet my house that someone here would be complaining about keeping him in too long.