Twins 3, Angels 5: Angels Comeback, Win on Walk-off

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

He angles back, toward the corner. He intercepts the ball after one or two hops. 

I'm not going to argue any longer,  but you're wrong. For same reason an infielder doesn't always travel perpendicular to the path of a ground  ball. A SS for example, angles a little toward CF rather than 90 degrees from a ground ball's path to cut off a grounder up the middle.

If he's going to attempt to catch it, yes. Direct path to ball flight.

But you have to be 100 percent sure you can catch it. Otherwise, tie game for sure, and maybe worse.

Not 100 percent? Cut the ball, 3-2, live to see another hitter with the lead.

It's math. You probably shouldn't argue math.

Gordon attempted to intercept the ball at 75 feet from his original position.
The second line, slightly further back is 83 feet long.
The third line, furthest back is 99 feet long.

Based on the approximate ball velocity and Nick Gordon's maximum sprint speed, here is a blown up image of where Nick Gordon would have been relative to the ball had he taken a different route. The ball is the white dot, the red star is Nick Gordon's position relative to the ball. As you can plainly see, the ball is traveling faster than Nick Gordon can run.

I blew the image up to 400% of it's original size and measured the distance of each line, then calculated the distance traveled between the ball points and calculated the time needed to travel between those different points and re-plotted Gordon's position at his maximum speed. Math.

Nick Gordon could not have possibly cut the ball off by attempting to play the ball deeper.
 

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Any self respecting manager would quit if all the on field decisions were being made for him and against his wishes. Furthermore, GM's generally don't hire managers who are not on board with a management philosophy the front office believes in.

Baldelli buys into the TTO (third-time through order) logic, which I think is totally flawed. Tyler Mahle has been better TTO this year than STO both in ERA and FIP.

My biggest problem with the TTO myth is how pitchers are pulled. If the pitcher runs into problems with the TTO, their leash is short. Often there are inherited base runners, inflating FIP, and the bullpen allows those runners to score, inflating ERA. The other problem I have is the drop in performance between FTO and STO is greater than STO and TTO. Not to mention, it doesn't matter if there's a drop in performance for TTO if the bullpen arms still aren't better than the starting pitcher in the first place.

Yeah I'm not saying that they are coming into the dugout and telling him what to do.  But they are saying that, you have a lefty reliever in the pen, you have a left handed hitter up, we don't care if the starting pitcher is throwing a shutout on only 68 pitches we expect you to put the lefty vs lefty matchup everytime, it doesn't matter that the starter has gotten that lefty out twice already.  

The other night Mahle was pulled after 83 pitches, he has thrown over 100 pitches 10 times this season and with a high of 119 in a 5 -3 complete game.  So I get it when you can bring in a guy like Duran or Lopez.  But when you have to use them every night against the same team they are going to probably get hit.  So if Mahle goes 1 more inning and they bring in Fulmer in the 8th and Duran in the 9th they still win 4 - 0 probably.  Then last night if Bundy goes at least one more, maybe two.  Then Theilbar, Jax and Lopez closes it.  Duran and Lopez don't get over exposed. 

People always say the bullpen is getting overused, the actual pitchers arent really throwing too many innings, it's just that, to me, they are throwing too many times against the same teams in a row.  These MLB hitters are good and if they see you one day and then get to see you again tomorrow their odds go up.  JMO

3 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Full No Trade Clause. Buxton is going nowhere, and even if the Twins wanted to trade him, he's really not worth much in regard to surplus value. Buxton is a good player. A very good player and he's on pace for 123 games and 510 plate appearances this year. This was the absolute BEST case scenario for Buxton.

He is not the reason the Twins aren't winning.

I know it isn’t just him and it was not easy to even think that for sure.    Didn’t think about the no trade clause.      I love watching him in CF and his base running.  His injury proneness is really holding him back in the things I loved to see.  Enjoying his home runs for sure.  

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

They weren't going to pitch the 8th and 9th, which is where it was lost

ok

3 hours ago, bighat said:

Yeah I think we just have to sometimes just say "ya know what, I'm done with baseball for a while" and stop paying attention. I also have the MLB package here in Florida. It's not the money, but like you said it's the wasted time that really leads to regrets. 

Last year I turned off the MLB.com notifications on my phone and it really led to a much more peaceful summer. I turned them back on this year, but they're getting zonked again as of today. There's nothing worse than seeing a notification like "Angels 5, Twins 3" when you're using your phone as a flashlight at 2am when you're stumbling to the john.

FYI----I know its preseason game 1 for Vikings, but what I've seen so far is ugly.  Stupid penalties, breakdown in coverage, not being to convert in red zone.  Yes, I know this is TD site and am tracking---from a distance--our collection of nimrods-----getting shutdown by a rookie SP with nearly an 8 ERA and cant hit the immortal Jaime Barria.  Just another great day in the life of a Minnesota sports fan.

4 hours ago, Twodogs said:

Yeah I'm not saying that they are coming into the dugout and telling him what to do.  But they are saying that, you have a lefty reliever in the pen, you have a left handed hitter up, we don't care if the starting pitcher is throwing a shutout on only 68 pitches we expect you to put the lefty vs lefty matchup everytime, it doesn't matter that the starter has gotten that lefty out twice already.  

The other night Mahle was pulled after 83 pitches, he has thrown over 100 pitches 10 times this season and with a high of 119 in a 5 -3 complete game.  So I get it when you can bring in a guy like Duran or Lopez.  But when you have to use them every night against the same team they are going to probably get hit.  So if Mahle goes 1 more inning and they bring in Fulmer in the 8th and Duran in the 9th they still win 4 - 0 probably.  Then last night if Bundy goes at least one more, maybe two.  Then Theilbar, Jax and Lopez closes it.  Duran and Lopez don't get over exposed. 

 

People always say the bullpen is getting overused, the actual pitchers arent really throwing too many innings, it's just that, to me, they are throwing too many times against the same teams in a row.  These MLB hitters are good and if they see you one day and then get to see you again tomorrow their odds go up.  JMO

I agree with you. I think the biggest advantage with starting pitchers is their ability to give you 6+ innings of pitching while keeping you in the game. Why go out and trade for a starter if you're going to use them like an opener? Baldelli isn't the issue. The front office & Baldelli's game plan is the issue IMHO.

On 8/14/2022 at 6:50 AM, bighat said:

How much more of this can fans take? At what point does thinking about Gopher football, or Vikings, T-Wolves, or Wild pre-season games become a more rewarding pastime? 

Usually that's November 1 for me.

On 8/14/2022 at 9:13 AM, darwin22 said:

I'm DONE investing any more time and energy into this team. 

I made this exact same decision just before the All-Star Break. I highly recommend it to everyone. I came back to TD today just to check in, commiserate and see how the good folks here are surviving the club's total implosion.

It's pretty clear it's going to get worse, folks. Now might be a good time to hop off the ride.