TOR 7, MIN 4: WHAT IS HAPPENING!?!?!?

Once Pillar stole 2nd, well Curtis started to have that deer in headlights look, and it got worse.  I like his arm, but wow that was a meltdown

I want to criticize optioning Curtiss back to AAA already... but I don't know, all of the young arms have looked awful, so I'm not sure what can be done. 

With the defense being so awful, I'm not sure I can be confident with Romero's first start. Especially with Grossman somewhere in the outfield.

If Molitor lets Gibson pitch the 6th, the relievers are all pushed back an inning.

Yes, but it's likely Gibson was out of gas and he probably doesn't get out of that inning without bullpen help. It was (and is) a lose-lose proposition for Molitor.

 

I want to criticize optioning Curtiss back to AAA already... but I don't know, all of the young arms have looked awful, so I'm not sure what can be done. 

 

With the defense being so awful, I'm not sure I can be confident with Romero's first start. Especially with Grossman somewhere in the outfield.

It would have been nice to see Curtiss get some work in lower leverage innings before being booted.

If this keeps up, the Twins will soon be in last place and MOY will be MOR.... Manager of the Rear!

So my girlfriend's brother went to Romania a few months ago. It snowed, and he was pretty excited because it was the first time he's ever seen snow! How about that, eh?  Say, anyone ever been on a safari? I think it would be cool to see a rhino up close, in the wild. But then again, I wonder if the other tourists would ruin it. I mean, I went to Playa del Carmen this past winter and absolutely would never go again, just too many touris......what's that? Baseball? What's baseball?

Possibly. But I wanted Gibson to go back out. It was the 5-6-7 batters. Molitor has got to let starters go longer.

Gibson was laboring to get through most of his 5 innings, and was already at 96 pitches. His track record is pretty terrible when he’s allowed to go back out after a game like that. Most posters here would lampoon Molitor for letting him go out and inevitably start a circus for the bullpen to clean up.

When things are going bad, there is almost nothing you can do to fix it but just hope it fixes itself. We have had some key injuries, relief pitchers have no command and are walking first batters (you can never do that), Morrison has been a bust (even worse than Park- wherever he is), the defense has been like watching a little league game (this is the most surprising thing) and the starters have been lousy (except for Gibson). 

The good thing is that the division is very weak and even Cleveland is not playing well. However, I don't think we will ever catch them even when we start to win again. Now the questions are a)which Twins team is the real one (the first 13 games or the recent games)? and are we already out of the Wild Card contention? 

With the Yankees/Red Sox battle and the Angels/Mariners battle, we may be toast for this year.

I'm speechless after this one. This is not a .500 team they are that bad. Wow! Was 2017 really that big of a fluke season for this club? Seems hard to believe. One thing is for certain the pitching has been and still is the achilles heel of this organization and it's been 6+ years since 2011! This is why when you commit to a rebuild you FULLY COMMIT instead of trying to fool the fans with happy talk, dumpster diving and a patchwork of retread free agent starter signings, which is what Terry Ryan pulled for yearsss...Hopefully Romero does well and while they are at it finally start calling up some of the other youngsters such as Gonsalves, Littell, Slegers, etc., and get them badly needed major league experience. We need options.

Do we need some new sabermetric guys?

If Molitor lets Gibson pitch the 6th, the relievers are all pushed back an inning.

I was surprised he let Gibson finish the 5th, so I knew there was no chance of him coming out for the 6th.

I would have him come out for the 6th, but Molitor knew if anybody gets on base he will pull him so let a Relief Pitcher start the inning.

Basically they don't let a starter, star a new inning if they have over 90 pitchers, and they wonder why the bullpen is terrible.

I was watching. I didn't think he was gassed. They lost, and Molitor/Twins gets lampooned anyway.

Then I guess it was a lose-lose proposition because we simply don't have enough pitching to get through the game. That's kind of where this team is right now.

So glad Romero is coming up, would have liked Curtiss to stay and continue to develop - its not like he is blocking some good bullpen arms.  Gibson has regularly blown up if left in too much - credit Molitor for observing this..

Okay lets call out Garvin and Guardardo.  Bert Blyleven and Morris are consultants, LaTroy is a special assistant, and I do not know who else in the office and minor leagues.  If, as one comment states, we are not developing our arms, we have to ask why not and who is to blame?

Gonsalves, Littell need to follow Romero.  Lets get the lumps out of the way and really develop a rotation. 

 

Okay lets call out Garvin and Guardardo

With a 9+ era from the bullpen during this skid there has to be something systematically wrong here. 

A Little League game is 6 innings. A starting pitcher in Little League is usually expected to finish. So a Major League pitcher making multiple 9 figures with 4 days rest can't go more than 5? Who do the Twins acquire, a bunch of candy back sides? Buxton gets headaches, Sano carries too much weight for his frame and body structure, their best "stuff" pitcher gets tired after having to do his job for 5 innings once a weekl. Speaks for itself.

Anyone could have " seen (the possibility) of this coming. That is why this team was such an unknown going into this season. Now its becoming a known.

Sorry, I can't figure out how to actually get the gif to display here, so here's just a link to what I believe is the current situation in the FO.

https://media.giphy.com/media/z9AUvhAEiXOqA/giphy.gif