I think it’s a fair question to ask why we used a long reliever into the 8th inning of a tie game coming off an off day. Maybe nothing would have been different but why did we need to try and get 3 innings out of him?
So many players had career years in 2019 offensively, I think it skewed our expectations. Polanco, garver, Kepler, sano...just not the same since. Throw in auto out cave and below avg austudillo and I guess 6-6 is to be expected
Maeda’s control problems cost him dearly, as did the weird drop by Simmons and the barehanded misplay by Arraez. He’s one of those guys that can pitch into the 7th routinely. Just not when you throw over 30 pitches in one inning
Yeah honestly not a big fan of “use your best pitcher at any time you have a lead”. That’s how you end up with one of your weaker relievers in extra innings
Twins starters will need to get past the FIFTH inning (can’t believe the bar is that low) or this team will struggle immensely. The bullpen is not trash but it will be gassed completely if they have to get 12+ outs every night. People complaining about depth but very few teams have 4-5 studs coming out of the pen. Very similar stuff happened last year in the shortened season. This is a modern problem across all of baseball, starters not lasting long enough. I assume maeda, Pineda and berrios could be guys that routinely go longer than 5, but happ and shoemaker? Oh boy. We did enough to win this game but not with the horrendous defense. I simply can’t fathom how a big league vet doesn’t know what base to throw to. Unreal.
Time to see what we can get for some of our bigger names. This club has proven to be every bit the basket cases the other ones were. Maybe some new blood can lift this silverback gorilla off our backs. And Rocco gets one last chance. He’s been out coached in 5/5 playoff games.
I couldn’t have been higher on buxton than when he went down and plunked one into the outfield and then stole a base. That should have led to a run. But the rest of his at bats were the bad Byron we saw for so long. Flailing wildly at pitches out of the zone. His at bat in the 5th turned the game around. Not bunting was the right call, but that was such a bad at bat it turned the game around
Best outcome matchup wise for the twins, outside of maybe Toronto. However, the tortured minnesota fan in me sees a team under .500 qualify for the playoffs for the first time ever and gets awfully nervous. We haven’t been favored in a postseason in a while. Need to break the long losing streak. Thankfully avoided the yankees
Blue jays in free fall mode, they won’t pass the Yankees. Boston blows a late 4 run lead over NY and is now in extras. Cleveland won and is two back of us. Never been ok with our team losing out but you’d be a fool to want anything else at this point