AlwaysinModeration

Well, it was Schoop and Willians yesterday. Who’re the bombaleros today? Torreyes, come on down! How about the leadoff hitter, can he get one too?

I was looking for the “unlike” button, but this’ll do.

Why didn’t any of the Tigers fans stick around for the celebrations?

Good job, team. And by team, I mean all of us. A real team effort. Now, on to end the 10-games losing streak in the playoffs against the Yankees 13-game playoff losing streak 8 (?) game home losing streak. And hopefully not all on the same night. What I am REALLY looking forward to is the Twins-Rays ALCS.

Yeah

FlauerPauer, in answer to your question, I vote no on signing Abreu.

This is a helluva birthday present shaping up for Rocco.

So, back at the beginning of the season, who had “98 wins, verge of clinching the division with four days to spare, 299 home runs” in the pool?

In 1993 the Braves won the NL West with 104 wins, while the Giants missed the playoffs with 103 wins. The three division, one wild card format started the next year, but the strike resulted in no post season.

Seven games left, need to go 4-3 versus KC and Detroit. Seems doable. 100 wins if they go 5-2. Also doable, just need to win each series.

That’s one. 295-294. CBU

Yankees 295 homers, 6 games to play. Twins 293 homers, 8 games to play. Need a couple of bombas tonight to tie it up.

Who cares? Twins need to go 5-3 against the Royals and Tigers to get 100 wins and lock down the division.

And by the way...Sergio Romo’s Slider is in the 2800s, whereas the MLB average is 2400.

In looking through the box score, I was interested to take a look at the spin rates of the Twins’ pitchers. Graterol and Dobnak both have sinkers with RPMs in the 1900s, both decently below the MLB average of 2100+. Stashak’s four seamer is average, in the 2200s, while May’s in slightly above, in the 2300s. Smeltzer, though, RPMs his four-seamer in the 2400s. Graterol gets away with it because of velocity, but his pitches are more hittable because the ball isn’t spinning as fast. Meanwhile, Smeltzer’s fastball is hard for people to square up because it has some wicked spin.

That was big news, what?!

It seems like he has gone up there in multiple at bats recently with a plan of taking pitches until he either gets one strike or two strikes. With as few strikes pitchers throw him, it is a good way to get a walk, or at a minimum a good way to drive up the opposing pitcher’s pitch count.

Brusdar is a boss.

So for tonight, I’d say....Thorpe for 4, May for 2, Harper, Romo and...some other guys? Clippard starting for the Indians. Play loose and hang a big number of him! I’d say they hit at least 3-4 homers in the night cap.

Would like to see Devin Smeltzer pitch six innings, give up two runs, and leave the game with the lead, which is held by the pen. Then a chance to bury Cleveland with a bullpen win in the nightcap.

I started to read the intro without seeing who posted it. I got to “nurse three fingers” before concluding it was Dave. Well done, sir. I feel as though the Twins should have noted that there was a chance the game wouldn’t get completed last night, and held Odorizzi for today. That way you guarantee to get his start. Anyway, adversity! Let’s see what the boys have got in terms of resilience.

Game postponed

Thank god the team is back on the road!

(I’m doing the math, I see that Davis and Larnach tie with 39 points each, but shouldn’t 4 out of 6 first place votes pretty clearly break the tie?)

Meanwhile, the Twins hit 23 homers off of Baltimore in their six matchups, almost four per game. Extrapolate that over 19 games, and they would have hit 73 homers against Baltimore.