cHawk

I'll go back to run expectancy stuff, because it does matter. The situation that Robles was in had a 1.352 run expectancy. The pitch to Vaughn wasn't even that bad. A good offensive team that is having good ABs at the plate will score at least once every time, against any reliever. The Sox are a good offensive team. We are not, and for this reason exactly. For a run to not score, the pitching has to be ABSOLUTELY perfect (which you aren't going to get night after night after night) or the offense has to be really, really bad in that scenario. The Twins have been the latter almost every time when they bat.

Varela needs to be gone. Fire his ass.

I don’t think firing Rocco is the answer. He won back-back division titles, with a combined 137-85 record. He’s been bad this year, but I don’t see why a bad stretch of 40 games negates 220 games. A bench coach is probably the way to go, since he had a competent one (Bell) in 2019-2020.

What should the plan be for 2022 since this season is so clearly lost? Blow everything up? Retool?

Everyone, show of hands, please. Who predicted this?

But most other clubs are winning ballgames, the Twins are not.

Ayyy!!!

Happ can’t strike anyone out

IDK, you tell me.

That is true. My point isn't that it IS bad (it shouldn't be, at least), but it HAS BEEN quite bad thus far. (and it has)

Runs scored is irrelevant when it comes to this club. A few 12 run explosions here or there make the run differential much higher. And most of those 12 run explosions, they're padding their batting stats in garbage time.

FINEEEE??!!!!!?! You’re saying our offense is FINE? We haven’t been just “not great” in clutch situations, we’ve been downright putrid. The way the Twins hit with RISP is completely unacceptable for any team. It has scored 3 or fewer runs in 20/33 games thus far. That isn’t going to work, no matter how good your pitching is.

The two worst things an MLB team can have: 2. A bad bullpen 1. An offense that refuses to hit with RISP, score very few runs, and dissipates late in games The Twins have both of those things.

How on Earth could we possibly be this bad? What is holding them back? How is it supposed to be fixed?

Has situational hitting ever been this massive of a problem for an MLB team?

Rally time, I guess

Oh wow

I can’t tell if Maeda was getting really lucky or if he actually pitched well.

Great AB Simmons

Is he fixable then?

It doesn’t seem like he’s throwing the same stuff he was in 2020. Did he just lose arm strength because of his age? Is he hurt? It doesn’t seem like a case of “the league figured him out.”

I don’t think it was un unreasonable expectation that Maeda could be at least decent. Is he hurt?

I don’t think anyone predicted this. It certainly looks like we’re out of it after these next six games, the way we’re playing right now. I hope I’m wrong.

Um...no. There is no evidence that the players are doing their best. There also isn’t clear evidence that they aren’t, but they don’t look like they are (at least at the plate). We’re not seeing them take good at bats or them constantly getting hits taken away by great defense or deep fly balls just come up short. We’re seeing 4-pitch K after Pop-up after weak dribbler (almost always in scoring situations). If that’s not the case then the professional hitting careers of half our lineup are all over. 5% to the players? Players should receive criticism for bad performance and that’s what we’ve been seeing this year.

Hate to say it but you might be right. We seem to be in the same spot as the Cubs.