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

6 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Hovering around .500 at the end of the month is starting to look like a pipe dream.

Yup. Trouble is, you gotta win four straight series now - two weeks worth of games - just to get to .500. This team hasn't shown any capacity to even win a single series.

Gonna be over before it even got started, unless someone can light a spark.

Well.....if you ask Rocco I'm sure he's satisfied with tonight's final result. 

Making this statement as the Twins achieved his recent stated goal for HIS team.

"We're just trying to stay in games"

Mission accomplished Rocco.  

Take a bow.

If we can't even beat the Royals I don't really know who we plan to beat.  Maybe once they get Buck back they do something but this lineup is thin on hitters right now.  Can't win any games if you score no runs.  Gotta say the hitters look horrible, just horrible to start the season.  Hopefully they take extra batting practice because they need it.

This is reached the point where there's not much to say. Somebody has to hit the ball and get on base and then even more important somebody has to score. Maybe tomorrow, but even if we win one of the three games what does it really mean?

4 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

This is reached the point where there's not much to say. Somebody has to hit the ball and get on base and then even more important somebody has to score. Maybe tomorrow, but even if we win one of the three games what does it really mean?

We are one game closer to .500.

28 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

Someone please tell me our minor league system is full of really good hitters

Falvey turned us into the Indians alright.  We can pitch now but no hitters to be found and the 30 Million dollar man has been less than clutch to this point.  These guys need to find themselves and fast if they want to save the season.

As Cito Gaston famously quipped after game 4 of the 91 ALCS, "It aint over 'till they beat us tomorrow."

If the Twins' offense were a drunk fat guy on a skateboard...

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

This offense should be averaging 5 to 6 runs per game, even without Buxton. 

The starting rotation appears pretty solid. Even my initial horror at Paddack's first start was gratefully wrong. He's not a recently converted short stop. He's a good, not great mlb pitcher. That appears to be how we could describe most of the starters, except Ryan, who looks great, Ober, who looks efficient, and Bundy, who looks like a mature professional pitcher. 

Time to try the all-batting-average lineup?

DH Arraez, C Sanchez, 1B Miranda, 2B Polanco, 3B Urshela, SS Correa, LF Larnach, CF Buxton, RF Austin Martin

Is Kurt Suzuki still playing? *laughs* *sobs*

9 minutes ago, ToddlerHarmon said:

Time to try the all-batting-average lineup?

DH Arraez, C Sanchez, 1B Miranda, 2B Polanco, 3B Urshela, SS Correa, LF Larnach, CF Buxton, RF Austin Martin

Is Kurt Suzuki still playing? *laughs* *sobs*

Why is Larnach in there?

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. 

What sucks is if the is 2021 redux. Out of contention by mid-May. If that's the case bring up the youths. Gotta shake something up, because 2 years of this signifies a problem. That starting pitching is not going to last.

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.

6 hours ago, denarded said:

What sucks is if the is 2021 redux. Out of contention by mid-May. If that's the case bring up the youths. Gotta shake something up, because 2 years of this signifies a problem. That starting pitching is not going to last.

"If"? I think we're already there. Rocco was DH'ing Ryan Jeffers last night and had him batting 8th. Just read that sentence again to get a feel for how bleak things are right now. So far we've had all the ingredients for a 2021 repeat: ice cold hitting and a sprinkling of bullpen meltdowns that cost the Twins winnable games. Decent starting pitching that won't last long. And by the time the Twins' hitters catch up, all the magic fairy dust will have come off guys like Bundy and Archer. It's 2021 all over again.

The only hope this team has rests in the hands of Buxton, who might single-handedly help them to 80 wins if he plays every game the rest of the season. And that's just not going to happen. And the dude should be on the IL if he's not going to play so we can get a look at some other guys ASAP.

There is just something about the aura of this team that feels off. Watching them, they all just look like they're stuck and nobody's clicking at the same time. Every small spark is immediately snuffed out and almost every key decision turns out to be wrong. Everything just feels out of tune.

8 hours ago, darwin22 said:

Well.....if you ask Rocco I'm sure he's satisfied with tonight's final result. 

Making this statement as the Twins achieved his recent stated goal for HIS team.

"We're just trying to stay in games"

Mission accomplished Rocco.  

Take a bow.

 

 

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.

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.

Statistically it also matters how you get to the mean (average) runs scored. Sometimes the median (middle) number on a list of numbers can be more useful than the mean. In an extreme example a team that plays 4 games and scores 17, 1, 1, and 1 has an average of 5 runs per game but probably finishes that stretch 1-3. A team that scores 5, 5, 5, and 5 over the same stretch maybe goes 3-1 or 4-0. I don’t have the actual data, but the Twins often feel to me more like that first team.

You know you are in trouble hitting-wise when we are rotating DH'ing our catchers  who combined are hitting below .200 and are slow as molasses on the basepaths.   Sanchez I can maybe see as a DH but Jeffers should never be the DH.  Garlick in the 4 hole is another gem.  FO did not bring in enough depth this offseason.   I have mentioned this before so don't want to beat a dead horse but we also move players all over the lineup card each game which I think hurts any consistent production.   Looking at the opposing teams lineups we have played this season - they like to stick to a pretty consistent order.   So there is plenty of blame to go around - players, managers and FO .  

There is literally nothing to complain about after last night.

Because nothing happened.

Look on the bright side:  we didn't have to see Tommy Watkins wave anyone into an out at home plate,. :}

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.