VivaBomboRivera!

Hot bats take all the pressure off the Twins staff and place it squarely on the shoulders of the opponent.

Perhaps the Cleveland team will want to choose the name, "Baby Seals," because they sure got clubbed today. Stepping back now from the precipice of bad taste to simply observe that today's lineup batted 10/40 with two walks, so there is still room for improvement. Hopefully this was the day the Twins turned the corner.

8 for 34 (.235) no walks and 6 strikeouts today. Anemic.

It's a question of starting sooner rather than later.

Berrios sure looked like he wanted to stay in.

Change of subject: This lineup batted a collective 5/34 (yes, that's .147, folks) with a walk today. The club has scored an average 2.8 runs in the past 10 games. At an average of 4.0 the Twins would be in a completely different place. Not even finished with April and it is getting late.

SSDD

The entire relief strategy after Maeda's breakdown is mystifying. If you trust the bats, how do you position the arms to get through a very long afternoon? Duffey enters with score 4 - 7 in 4th; 1 IP, 4 batters, 11 P, 1 BBScore is tied in the bottom of the 5th - it is a new game, 15 outs long, next day is an off dayDuffey is already committed and half the A's batting order hasn't seen him yet - unless there is an incredibly bad matchup, why not ask him for another three outs? (rule of thumb - dance with them that brung ya)Instead, Dobnak faces 3 batters in the 5th and retires them on 10 pitchesBottom of the 6th, 10 - 7: Again, barring a bad matchup, why not ask The Driver to hold that lead when there are still 12 outs needed? If he allows runners on base, the high-leverage arms will be there; if he doesn't, those arms will only be needed for 9 outs (same applied to Duffey)Robles gets only two batters before running into trouble; now two arms (three with the unused Alcala) remain to get 10 tough outsBottom line: Can't be a good end game if without a better middle game.

Q: What do the April '21 Twins and Billy Graham have in common? A: Both of them can make an entire stadium of people stand up and scream, "Oh, Jesus!" Well, April Fool's Day has apparently come 21 days late. Now the season is 10% over and this club needs to pull its head out of its hindquarters. I love my Twins and I still believe that the 2019 core with the improvements they've made can be real champions, but right now somebody needs to run them into the showers for a talk. How did we ever win eight six?

But every aspect is not failing. Starting pitching is solid. Defense is better than past two years. Relievers have been burned but have also had their moments. This team has scored 12 lousy runs in the last 7 games. If the offense had been able to put together just 4 runs in five of its lost games so far this season the Twins record would be 11 - 5, not 6 - 10. The bats owe Berrios and Maeda at least a win each. No team will have a winning record scoring less than two runs a game. "This team couldn't handle TK." Perhaps not. But he does not appear to be coming out of retirement.

For those of you watching at home, that's 17 straight innings in which these bums have failed to push a runner across.

Last item applies to every team in the league. Clearly some teams adapt better than others (see, "Chaos is a ladder"). Bottom line - Can't win games if you don't score runs.

This shows that no testing and quarantine protocol can stop an epidemic; they can only slow it down to buy time for treatments/cures. The Twins have been very rigorous with the implementation and enforcement of their process. Management statements, such as this one from Derek Falvey at the time Simmons' illness was announced, make the point: The team's system worked from July - September and again through spring training, but it only takes one accidental transmission to set the dominoes falling. Games will be postponed, and people will continue to get sick and die until most of the population worldwide is vaccinated. Hopefully the Twins will continue their efforts to get the word out.

"Simmons has been public about his thoughts on COVID and vaccinations. Before the season started, he tweeted his thoughts and reason for not getting vaccinated." And now apparently those chickens have come home to roost. :-(

Aaron Gleeman observed that Dobnak would likely be better suited to long relief work when he was brought in to start the inning, rather than being given the ball when runners are already on base or in other higher leverage situations. It is mighty, mighty early to be thinking much beyond that. Dobnak has major league stuff and he will contribute to a successful Twins season. Let's come back to this after he's faced about double the 28 batters he's thrown against so far.

A team of cast-offs is overachieving while a potentially world-beating assembly is having trouble with the fundamentals.

Time for some positive thinking. The left side of the infield had an outstanding defensive day.

Today was just an extension of the 8-6 loss to the Mariners. The Twins only needed to score 3 runs in 8 innings to win.

Should have gotten to this on the off day. Please refer to the box score along with this reply. "Hold for just one inning" - that is what these guys get paid for. In this game, however, we had a 2-run lead to protect over 4 innings. Any opponent can overcome such a deficit in that span. Shoemaker should have been pulled before giving up that dong. Instead, he left the game after 5 innings with the score 4 - 6. At that point, the Twins still have to be thinking about piling on runs in support of the pitching and defense. They did not. If the Mariners could score 4 runs in 4 innings, the Twins ought to be able to do so, as well. The fact is that the Twins got no production from the bottom half of their batting order. Batters 1 - 4 totaled 7 H in 15 AB with 3 BBBatter 5 managed to go 1/4Batters 6 - 9? O-fer 15 with a walkHard to win a game with half a squad. Add to that a RISP of 2-10 and 8 LOB and you have a real problem. The Twins have shown an ability to score early, but as others have remarked their situational hitting needs work and their ability to manufacture runs has been spotty. Today's 4-2 loss to the Scarlet Hose (0-8 RISP, 10 LOB!) reinforces the point. This offense is dangerous, but it won't be truly scary until it becomes more consistent.

Somehow fumbled the link to the Chief's post in the above quote.

Photographic evidence of the Chief witnessing the duel. Today's result shows a clear difference in the performance of the top and bottom halves of the batting order. Hitting still has much more to do with these four losses than pitching, but after this game there is a fair amount of nostalgia for last year's bullpen.

SwainZag, on 11 April 2021, 12:05 PM said: ... 4/10 innings the Twins had a runner on 2nd or 3rd to end innings. 0/8 with runners in RISP. One clutch hit all game and things are different. A little early to be trashing the bullpen. How did the M's score on the bullpen today? Against Colome: Infield single, stolen base, single. Against Rogers: Bunt single, sac fly. One ball went out of the infield. They haven't looked "Championship" caliber, but it's April 10th. I'm not fretting yet. This. Way too many guys left on base. The bats have also failed to bring home the second base runner in the 10th three times now.

Governor Walz has announced that the whinging and the hand-wringing can stop now (even though it was just the Mariners).

"Strikeouts are boring! Besides that, they're fascist. Throw some ground balls - it's more democratic." What made the performance really stand out was 12 Ks and _no_ walks.