Hosken Bombo Disco

Looking for silver linings: The Twins are 2-0 when Tyler Duffey is suspended? The Twins didn’t lose any ground to Detroit, who also lost today? The Twins are still 2–1 when playing as the Cocaine Dentists?

Did this help? This is gold. There is a Cody Bellinger Little League home run, where his attack angle looks very negative but the ball flies a long way. Bat struck ball in the right spot. (Don’t know why I thought of that, but I did)

Not sure, but the Twins traded 6 full time guys/contributors at the deadline back in 2018. and I bet if you tried, you could find a whole lot of posts praising those trades for what their payoff would be three years later in 2021 .. The one thing that is different is that Berrios is by far a better trade chip than any of those guys in 2018 were.

Dead on. Marvelous. (thanks for linking back to Part I.)

I wonder if increased strikeouts are a byproduct of optimizing Attack Angle for power. I bet (hypothesize) it is and I bet there’s been some swing coaching on the Twins lineup that has been counterproductive. I would like to see Kepler’s data, in particular. I remember that nice flat swing from earlier years somehow generating all that backspin. “Let Kep swing how he wants, how he did when he first came up.” Thanks @Parker Hageman. I will have to get on Substack.

2-1. At least it was a competitive game to a good pitcher.

Best guess is both will start both games of double header in LA today

Sounds like a good plan—win the game you are playing on the field on that day.

I think the Twins have been somewhat lucky, actually. Earlier in the season I recall the other team hitting several near home runs that went just foul. Don’t remember details unfortunately. The Twins got plenty of luck in Sunday’s game, with replay calls and such, then they booted the game away anyway because Donaldson missed a catch playing out of position, probably related to shifting with runners on base and not communicating good fielding assignments to the players. In the first game against the White Sox last week (Tuesday, May 11), Polanco hit an infield popup that wasn’t caught—again, some good luck. Instead of a two out, nobody on situation, it led to a three run inning and a three run lead. But the Twins lost that game, too, in big part because they seem to think they need to hold back Maeda’s innings for later in the season (I think he should have pitched another inning) and are not doing anything meaningful to address the bullpen. A win against the White Sox on May 11 would have cut the lead in the standings to 6.0 games, and maybe given them some momentum. Are the Twins unlucky? No, not in my opinion!

If the only player on the left side of the diamond covers second on short infield grounders fielded by the catcher or pitcher, who is responsible for third base: the pitcher, or catcher? The left fielder?

Thanks for the replies @wsnydes @theBOMisthebomb

It looked like three infielders running to second to receive the throw from Rogers. Seems inefficient?

Elvis has left the building baseline.

I guess If it was hit into the flower pots on the overhang, it’s probably just a deep fly out in 7 of 8 parks?

I actually enjoyed the game today. Didn’t have a problem with any of Rocco’s moves. Nice to see a new face in Refsnyder who helped today and hopefully Kirilloff is getting close. So glad for Sanó. Gladden called it. Sanó got ahold of two balls and one of them one the game. Maybe he can get on one of his streaks, or maybe it fires up a couple other guys. Lots of us have been asking for Rocco and the front office to let a starter pitch the 7th sometimes, and that finally happened today too. That’s not always going to work out, but today it did. Obviously the bullpen is still short some talent, and the fifth rotation spot will be a concern, but a win is a win; you only play them one at a time and you can’t get it all back all at once.

The article may be satire, but I know FOR A FACT that the Twins bullpen is not using STRIKEOUT BUTTER when they should be

The starter was left in too long? He pitched five and a third. Sorry, Mike, I will have this conversation with you all day, at least for today's game. I was listening on the radio. Sounded like Pineda wanted to stay in. After a game yesterday of 4.1 innings from the bullpen (two innings from Duffey and Colome). Now Rogers is burned up for tomorrow. Moves the other guys forward in the line. Multiple innings from the bullpen, every single night. It all compounds. Let a starter pitch, for crying out loud, maybe something interesting happens today and Pineda works out of it, and then pitches a quick scoreless seventh, and the guys come to bat in the top of the 8th with some vigor, Kepler's home run ties the game, Robles and Rogers still fresh for the bottom of the eighth. I mean, honest question? How much worse can it get to leave a starting pitcher in a game that he does not want to come out of, just once? (none of this is meant to be taken personally)

The advanced analytics are necessary in today’s game, but not sufficient. Baseball still requires tobacco and spit. This team doesn’t have enough of it.

I guess the pushback would be: what would they say? Is it the whole team that needs changing? I’d argue no. Guys like Buxton or Donaldson getting in the face of our bullpen pitchers seems a little off key. I mean, the bullpen guys already seem intimidated enough by opposing batters, no need for our own batters to shatter them completely

Rortvedt really seemed to struggle catching Maeda and Berrios, not on the same page with either, though I did notice a fist bump between Maeda and Rortvedt last night when Kepler robbed Abreu to end the third. Small victories I guess. Maeda recovered and retired the last nine he faced. Maeda might have had another inning in him? Rocco likes to turn it over to the ‘pen, as we all know. I guess it wouldn’t have mattered. I am going to assume Rocco, Derek and Thad are all kind of tied at the hip and in lockstep regarding the bullpen and pitcher usage.

I agree with your observation @chpettit19 that Buxton is a hard player to place a value on. Thats why I think the easiest answer is also the best answer in this case: let Buxton play out his contract through 2022. This assumes as I do that this is still a very good team having a very bad year, and that next year they will rebound (assuming bullpen improvements are made, and so on).

R.I.P. championship window, 2019-2019

From the Twins social media account, a declarative statement of fact, if there ever was one: “We faced the Rangers and Tigers this past week.”

That was my take on it, anyway. I’d be glad to get someone else’s take and talk it over here if someone else was listening.

Levine did give an interview to Provus this morning on Inside Twins. He came over the radio as a little anxious about something, so I will give him a pass. Bottom line: Expect the good things that are happening to continue being good (for example, batted ball exit velocity), and the bad things to stop being bad (inherited runners scored).