Twins 6, Royals 3: Twins Lose No-Hitter in Ninth Inning

Great game by Ryan. He did a nice job like he has all season pitching great against the poorest teams while struggling mightily against the top teams.  But that's ok.  At least we have a starting pitcher that can do that.  

9 hours ago, Beast said:

Nothing wins over an audience like finding creative ways to call them stupid.

Are these different armchair GMs than the ones who clamored for them to quit blowing the season by running Pagan out as closer for two months?  While the enlightened were pontificating about unlocking his spin rate and velocity?  

In seriousness, I get why they pulled him.  That pitch count was up there.  I can also see why one would say that they already royally F’d this season, why not give the kid his chance at history.  The kid has hardly pitched more than 4 2/3 in any outing all year.  Is there a litany of documented cases of young pitchers derailing their career from throwing 130 pitches in a game instead of 100?  

Joe must be just as dumb as these armchair GMs, because it seems he agrees, judging by how he ended that interview.  He sounded thrilled.  

Come on, Joe, get a clue about theoretical spreadsheet simulated baseball.  Also, get a clue about your own body..  

I don’t know how anyone could question it when they’re doing such a great job at keeping these guys healthy.  Shut up and throw 20% more elbow torquing breaking balls, and throw it 5 mph faster.

The loyal fans can just shut up too.  It’s a privilege to pay like $300 to sit in an empty stadium and watch a AAAA pitcher screw up what would’ve been the best moment of the season.  Go somewhere else if you want something remotely interesting to watch.

Lastly.  Desperately needed in the next series?  What, to slot in after the stopper, Chi Chi Gonzalez?  They’re 6 games out of the division and have to jump two teams.  Half the team is in a body bag.  Their playoff odds are zero.  It’s over.

I don't hear any fat lady singing. 

9 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

In his previous 9 innings he allowed 9 runs. Last night was a good night and his health is actually quite encouraging, especially compared to the rest of the rotation.

True he has had some bad starts. They have been against the best teams. He definitely has room to improve. I'm encouraged. 18 of 24 starts 3 runs or less. 5 of the last 8, 2 runs or less. Good teams expose his lack of off-speed command. When things go badly for him often it's a homer with men on base via free passes. He had five stars last year and these problems were exposed in only one of his starts. This off-season I'm sure he has a clear idea of what to work on. 

Last night's game from start to finish, was the most fun I've had watching the Twins in a long time. I surely hope Gray and the hitters and the 3B coach rise to the occasion tonight. 

I was so made Rocco didn't let Ryan at least go out there in the 8th inning that I turned off the game and didn't give a **** whether we won or lost ...

5 minutes ago, saviking said:

I was so made Rocco didn't let Ryan at least go out there in the 8th inning that I turned off the game and didn't give a **** whether we won or lost ...

Bold statement.

Rocco Baldelli made a move that improved the Twins chances of beating Cleveland next series and people are mad at him, which just tells you that there's nothing rational behind it.

People have memed themselves into believing this "spreadsheet" thing as if Rocco made some kind of weird decision that no other manager in the league would've made. In fact, the opposite is true. Even TLR would've pulled Ryan there. I heard the same "spreadsheet" nonsense lobbed at Gabe Kapler when he was managing the Phillies and for a significant section of the fanbase he couldn't do a single thing right. So the Phillies fired him and hired Joe Girardi, a pure old school guy. What happened next? Kapler took a San Francisco Giants team built with balsa wood and bubble gum to a 100+ win season while the Phillies had basically an identical record with Girardi and had to fire him this year.

One more point: leaving Moran out there for the ninth was also smart. Who cares about the runs he gave up? The Twins had five runs to give. They are just starting a stretch of eight games in a week, and they need to go all out to win every single one of them. Having rested starters and relievers is critical.

the coaching change I most want to see is moving on from Tommy Watkins as 3B coach. No signal at all to Correa last night who got thrown out by a mile, and it's only one of a litany of WTF moments in Twins baserunning that might have been alleviated by better work from our 3B coach. We've had many inexplicable decisions made over there this season, to the point where it's noticeable and normally your 3B coach is pretty invisible. Bremer even commented on it last night, FFS. He just seems to be making all the mistakes out there: sending guys when he absolutely shouldn't, holding guys when they should go, and failing to signal players to either stop or go.

I don't blame the 3B coach if a player runs through the sign, but I do blame the coach when he doesn't signal at all. Move him to 1B or the bench or somewhere else if you like what he brings to the team in other ways, but let's get him away from 3B where he actively costs the team runs & opportunities on what has been a regular basis this season.

I believe the great Jim Croce said it best in his famous tune: 'you don't tug on Superman's Cape; you don't spit into the wind; you don't pull the mask off the ole Lone Ranger; and you don't mess around with a pitcher throwing a no-hitter after 7 innings.'

I'm sure I got it right. thats how the tune went.

Is everyone so sure that by taking Ryan out, he will lead the Twins to the promised land in his next start...or the one after? Did every pitcher who threw over 100 pitches to get a no-hitter blow out his arm and never pitch again? 7 pitchers have thrown no-no's age 37 and older. Two threw TWO no-hitters after age 40 (Warren Spahn and Nolan Ryan) Randy Johnson pitched a perfecto at age 40. Ditto Dennis Martinez at age 37 for my beloved Expos. (both of those were pitched on the road and the crowds were solidly behind them in the final inning....because they knew they were seeing something special. Those pitchers certainly pitched all those years and probably weren't pulled after 5 or 6 innings early in their careers. Some kids blow out their arms early. These are humans, not machines. Some make it some don't. We have Byron Buxton..and we had Cal Ripken. Both talented...but their bodies completely different.

NO-hitters are NOT overrated. They are a big deal....when pitched by one pitcher. It is extremely difficult to go thru a lineup of major league hitters at least 3 times and not give up one base hit. Combined no-hitters are not a big deal. Nothing special at all when 4 or 5 pitchers combine to shut a team down. I know I didn't care to see one last night.  Some individual feats in sports are to be recognized and lauded, even in team sports. Its what keeps fans coming to the games. Right now, do you think fans in every city stop what they are doing to watch Albert Pujols try to get to 700 HR's.

Twins have nearly no shot at overcoming Cleveland and Chicago. Math yes...reality--no. The fans deserved to see something special last night. Ryan deserved that chance. In the era of no pitch count, this wouldn't even have been an issue. but today baseball has been sanitized, blanched, roboticized to where the game is played on a spreadsheet, a computer and a plethora of analytics that clog the life line of the former beauty of the grand old game.

If Ryan goes out next start and craps the bed, of what good would pulling him last night have accomplished? If he goes out and pitches 7 more no-hit innings, would that have been because he didn't exceed 106 pitches last night. We'll never know because ballplayers are human, not robots. There may be no logical reason to explain why Spahn and Nolan Ryan threw no-hitters at an age when almost all pro athletes have retired...but they did it. They got the chance and they took it.

Joe didn't get the chance and baseball and its fans are poorer for it. 

Like it or not, Baldelli made the right call last night. Despite the perceived opinion that he's left Ryan out there to take a beating and run his pitch count up, Ryan has only topped last nights pitch number twice, 110 on 8/9 and 107 on 8/26 and last night was the only the 7th time he's topped 100. 

He has also now thrown 129 innings, a career high at any level (132 if you count his 3 inning rehab start). Last year he threw 93 combined innings plus 10 innings in the Olympics. In 2020 he didn't pitch due to MiLB shutdown. He will be counted on to pitch down the stretch (as many posters on here say, pennant race experience is valuable) even if the team falters. Had he been allowed to pitch the 8th, the extra 10-15 pitches may have pushed his next start back a day, and the team has 13 games in 12 days and can't afford a bullpen game, especially against the team they are chasing.

I also liked that he was mad or felt slighted, it means he's a competitor and wants the ball. Sometimes having a little chip on your shoulder can be a good thing. 

43 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

the coaching change I most want to see is moving on from Tommy Watkins as 3B coach. No signal at all to Correa last night who got thrown out by a mile, and it's only one of a litany of WTF moments in Twins baserunning that might have been alleviated by better work from our 3B coach. We've had many inexplicable decisions made over there this season, to the point where it's noticeable and normally your 3B coach is pretty invisible. Bremer even commented on it last night, FFS. He just seems to be making all the mistakes out there: sending guys when he absolutely shouldn't, holding guys when they should go, and failing to signal players to either stop or go.

I don't blame the 3B coach if a player runs through the sign, but I do blame the coach when he doesn't signal at all. Move him to 1B or the bench or somewhere else if you like what he brings to the team in other ways, but let's get him away from 3B where he actively costs the team runs & opportunities on what has been a regular basis this season.

To be fair to Tommy, there were two times recently where he sent the runner sucessfully while the left fielder was lobbing the ball into second.

That said, I do agree that he needed to at least give CC4 a stop or run sign.  Sounded like he did neither.

3 hours ago, Hosken Bombo Disco said:

Once again Gleeman leaves out the important part. Even on the small stuff, media people are having trouble with this. No surprise anymore.

Berrios and Gibson pitched six innings, not seven. Why? Because those were very early season starts. I love Berrios and I love no hitters but I had no issue at all with Berrios and Gibson being pulled at the time. The 6th is the right inning to do it. And Slowey’s I do not remember as well but Slowey was just not that good, not as good as Ryan, and he also had some reputation stuff with Gardy or the clubhouse if I recall. Gardy might have wanted to pull Slowey after 8 no hit innings if he thought Slowey would make it that far.  

Also if I recall, Kershaw was fine being pulled after 7. He has his ring and 9 figure payday. 
 

So the answer last night was to pull Ryan in the sixth like you do in every other game. 

Don’t set up the expectation all of a sudden that fans might see something special for once. That was the expectation I had, anyway. 

Otherwise you are giving the impression that game situations, even foreseeable ones, just sneak up on you and give you trouble, which most of us already suspected. 

But even worse would have been letting Ryan pitch a no-hit 8th and then pull him after that.

So there’s that. The season motto: it could have been worse! 

It was also like 35 degrees at the Kershaw game. I was there. It was frigid. 

Was Joe Ryan guaranteed to never be able to pitch again if he threw 136 pitches? The bar should not be an absolute guaranteed career altering injury or continue the no-hitter attempt. The arguments about Joe Ryan coming back out for the 8th inning aren't compelling enough for me to be angry about it. For multiple reasons.

1. Joe Ryan was allowed to come out for the 7th despite having thrown more pitches than his average start at 95. If Ryan had gotten through the 7th with minimal pitches, I think Baldelli would let him go out for the 8th, but Ryan threw 11 pitches in the 7th. Not a lot, but not hyper efficient, either. It put Ryan into a spot where he was virtually guaranteed to go to 120+ pitches and on a pace for 136.
2. There were relievers warmed up. Getting relievers up and down repeatedly in the bullpen is considered bad practice.
3. The theory on arm injuries, especially the UCL, is it's often an acute thing from bad mechanics or weakened muscles in elbow. When humans are tired and performing strenuous exercise (throwing a baseball really fast, lifting heavy weights), they're more likely to become injured because they get lazy on their form and mechanics.

At what point does Joe Ryan slip up, get tired and throw a slider without paying attention to or being able to control his mechanics? Would that slip up have resulted in a torn UCL? I don't know. Probably not. Baldelli has regularly allowed Ryan to throw over 100 pitches this year (up to 110), but Ryan is not an efficient pitcher as his pitches get fouled off a lot. He typically throws 15-20 pitches per inning. The risk was probably not worth it.

Side note, I was at the game and even I boo'd them replacing Ryan. I couldn't see the pitch count, though, since the screen which shows it to my seats was broken/malfunctioning.

2 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

I don't hear any fat lady singing.

I think I see her getting loose in the pen. (vocal exercises)?

BUT..I'll throw in a couple more cliches - One game at a time

2 hours ago, tarheeltwinsfan said:

I don't hear any fat lady singing.

and It ain't over til it's over

3 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

I suspect most took more than 106 pitches, but then we never used to worry about pitch count.  

Somewhere in that sentence I believe was my point.    

11 hours ago, Beast said:

In seriousness, I get why they pulled him.  That pitch count was up there.  I can also see why one would say that they already royally F’d this season, why not give the kid his chance at history.  The kid has hardly pitched more than 4 2/3 in any outing all year.  Is there a litany of documented cases of young pitchers derailing their career from throwing 130 pitches in a game instead of 100?  

No one wants to derail the next Kerry Wood, you know? Wood cleared 120 pitches 8 times in his rookie season (including 133 in his 2nd to last start of the season, a 9-2 win)...and then missed all of 1999. In 2003, he threw 120 or more in 5 of his last 6 starts (#6 he still went 114) and there's a pretty good argument that he was never the same. (2004 he started battling injuries and only made 22 starts, followed by 10 the next season, and 4 the year after that) Wood never started a Major League game in his 30's.

Mark Prior is another one that you have to consider. (Dusty Baker really ground those guys up) His last 5 starts in 2003 (at age 22), when they were closing on the division title he threw 120 or more in 5 of his last 6 starts in Sept, including clearing 130 three times. (and then threw 130+ in his first playoff start, followed by chucking 116 in a blowout win for the next one). Battled injuries in 2004 (down to 21 starts), got it back a bit in 2005, was injured and bad in 2006 and never pitched again. 2006 was his age-25 season. 

How many do you need to have to stop doing this? 

6 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

No one wants to derail the next Kerry Wood, you know? Wood cleared 120 pitches 8 times in his rookie season (including 133 in his 2nd to last start of the season, a 9-2 win)...and then missed all of 1999. In 2003, he threw 120 or more in 5 of his last 6 starts (#6 he still went 114) and there's a pretty good argument that he was never the same. (2004 he started battling injuries and only made 22 starts, followed by 10 the next season, and 4 the year after that) Wood never started a Major League game in his 30's.

Mark Prior is another one that you have to consider. (Dusty Baker really ground those guys up) His last 5 starts in 2003 (at age 22), when they were closing on the division title he threw 120 or more in 5 of his last 6 starts in Sept, including clearing 130 three times. (and then threw 130+ in his first playoff start, followed by chucking 116 in a blowout win for the next one). Battled injuries in 2004 (down to 21 starts), got it back a bit in 2005, was injured and bad in 2006 and never pitched again. 2006 was his age-25 season. 

How many do you need to have to stop doing this? 

Where are the stats. that prove this was not inevitable , whether they 130 or 100 pitches.

If some thing breaks due to inherit weaknes , it will break regardless of time..

3 hours ago, Nine of twelve said:

I didn't take the time to read all the comments yet. But I'll say that letting Ryan go for the no-hitter would have been tantamount to giving up on the season. The Twins' only chance to make the rest of the season relevant is to win the next 7 games. That means Ryan needs to be at full strength on Sunday. For those who feel he should have continued to pitch we'll just have to agree to disagree about Rocco making the correct decision.

Agreed.  But I suspect the disagreement is far more than one pitcher being pulled after a certain number of pitches, losing the only chance, just maybe, for the gold ring of pitching.  It is about the overall use of pitchers, and the belief one way or the other that starters can be far more capable than today's generation gives them credit for.  It takes conditioning and stretching out, as it was done for a century, but today's pitchers want to tork all out on every pitch.  And, apparently, management (and a lot of the folks here) want them to as well.  So, we will have to agree to disagree on why that is a good thing.  I know I am a little old school, and am in the minority today (today meaning this era, not today as in Wednesday ),  but no one yet has convinced me how torking it on every pitch and living with 5 inning starts is good for the players or the game.  It causes injuries far more than 130 pitches ever has, but, again, let's just agree to disagree.  But I do believe it is a debate not only for TD, but for the game.  And I also believe I will lose the debate,  At least on Wednesday.    

If the Twins could just play the Royal for each game in different cities a la the Harlem Globetrotters, we would be in GREAT SHAPE!

52 minutes ago, RpR said:

Where are the stats. that prove this was not inevitable , whether they 130 or 100 pitches.

If some thing breaks due to inherit weaknes , it will break regardless of time..

Again... an absolute guarantee of a career ending or altering injury should not be the bar for pulling a pitcher. 

58 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

No one wants to derail the next Kerry Wood, you know? Wood cleared 120 pitches 8 times in his rookie season (including 133 in his 2nd to last start of the season, a 9-2 win)...and then missed all of 1999. In 2003, he threw 120 or more in 5 of his last 6 starts (#6 he still went 114) and there's a pretty good argument that he was never the same. (2004 he started battling injuries and only made 22 starts, followed by 10 the next season, and 4 the year after that) Wood never started a Major League game in his 30's.

Mark Prior is another one that you have to consider. (Dusty Baker really ground those guys up) His last 5 starts in 2003 (at age 22), when they were closing on the division title he threw 120 or more in 5 of his last 6 starts in Sept, including clearing 130 three times. (and then threw 130+ in his first playoff start, followed by chucking 116 in a blowout win for the next one). Battled injuries in 2004 (down to 21 starts), got it back a bit in 2005, was injured and bad in 2006 and never pitched again. 2006 was his age-25 season. 

How many do you need to have to stop doing this? 

Well, I wonder if the fact that you named two players on the same team, with the same manager, and the same strength and conditioning coaches is just a crazy and weird coincidence?  For each one of those guys there are literally hundreds and hundreds of pitchers that invalidate your argument.   

Every no hitter thrown in the past 6 seasons...

Ried Detmers - 5/10/22 = 108 pitches
Tyler Gilbert - 8/14/21 = 102 pitches 
Corey Kluber - 5/19/21 = 101 pitches 
Spencer Turnbull - 5/18/21 = 117 pitches (UCL tear diagnosed 3 games later)
Wade Miley - 5/7/21 = 114 pitches 
John Means - 5/5/21 = 113 pitches
Carlos Rodon - 4/14/21 = 114 pitches
Joe Musgrove - 4/9/21 = 112 pitches
Alec Mills - 9/13/20 = 114 pitches
Lucas Giolito - 8/25/20 = 101 pitches
Justin Verlander - 9/1/19 = 120 pitches (UCL tear diagnosed 6 starts later)
Mike Fiers - 5/7/19 = 131 pitches 
James Paxton - 5/8/18 = 99 pitches 
Sean Manea - 4/21/18 = 108 pitches
Edison Volquez - 6/3/17 = 98 pitches

2 of the 3 pitchers who were allowed to go more than 114 pitches ended their seasons with UCL surgery a few starts thereafter. Joe Ryan throwing fewer than 120 pitches was extremely unlikely and he was on pace for the most pitches thrown in a no hitter in recent history. Ryan possibly could have finished the game at fewer pitches than Mike Fiers, but that's it. Even in a perfect scenario (1 pitch, 1 out), Ryan would be throwing more pitches than 50% of no hitters. 

The arguments that "well back in the day!" harken to a different era where pitchers weren't throwing with as much effort as they do today and they weren't throwing so many sliders which seem to be more dangerous to UCLs. UCL injuries are common now when they were once rare. It's actually shocking how many of the pitchers on the list above eventually lost a season to UCL surgery eventually. Add a half dozen of those names to the list beyond what I noted.

4 of the last 5 no-hitters have been combined efforts, including 2 of 3 this year. Going back 6 seasons, 7 of 22 have been combined. It is now the way MLB managers and the analytics play the game.