RegularJoe62

Mauer reached first in 3 out of 4 trips to the plate, but it's somehow his fault we lost? I honestly don't get how he's somehow held to superhuman standards that nobody else is.

Did you happen to look in the stands during last night's game? Nobody there.

Nearly half the cities in MLB are below the Maxon Dixon line or in California. To that add Seattle, Toronto, and Milwaukee which have a roof available. There's no need to have a ten day homestand in April in the coldest city in the league. There's never a guarantee for weather, of course, but your odds of having snow or a 20-something degree day in late April are a lot less than in early April.

5/100 for Dozier? No. Too much infield depth in the minors.

I'm still waiting for them to switch to Coke instead of Pepsi.

Yes, I will give him a mulligan on that first inning. He was signed late and it was about 40 degrees at game time. We'll talk again if he still looks like this on his next couple of starts.

Sorry, I just don't get this notion that putting on a shift is good strategy, but bunting against it disrespects the game.

I don't know why this is an issue either. If there's a runner on second and you shift, you're giving away third. No reason not to take it unless you're sitting on a ten run lead or something.

The Twins splitting in New York is the prediction I found most unlikely. Given our history of futility there, I think we'd be lucky to leave Yankee Stadium with one win.

"...in their home country." Puerto Rico is part of the U.S.

I'd like to see a few more starts before we declare these guys to be the Glavine, Smoltz, and Maddux of their generation, but that sure was a fun series to watch.

Stop being all rational. Didn't you see the comment at the top? Oh well, there's always next year.

Have a look at numbers for prosecutions and convictions in rape cases. It's grossly under reported to police to begin with, and then only a fraction are prosecuted, and fewer still are convicted. Rape victims are further traumatized at each stage by police who often don't believe them, prosecutors who don't put perps on trial because the cases aren't slam dunks, and defense attorneys who blame the victims. Yeah, I'd say "widespread toleration" is a pretty accurate description. The #MeToo movement doesn't suggest the opposite, it's just swung the needle closer to something rational for women who are survivors of sexual assault and harassment.

Based in large part on pretty much everyone she knows believing her.

Kershaw is next offseaon's Yu Darvish for the Twins.

Can he play third? It's not going to take long for the Twins brain trust to figure out that Sano isn't going to be able to hold down the hot corner at 300 lbs and will need to move him to DH.

MLB and the club have a higher standard of proof to meet before they can suspend a player. The rest of us are free to come to our own conclusions based on what evidence we found, and what I found is that Betsy is credible and that this fits a pattern of behavior for Sano.

We'll never know for sure what happened in this kind of he-said-she-said story, but personally I believe Betsy, not only because she has little to gain and a lot to lose by telling her story, but also because of his misbehavior with the stadium ushers with the Chattanooga Lookouts and other credible reports of misbehavior with women. So, good for him that he's been cleared to play by MLB, but suffice it to say that I won't be buying any Sano jerseys.

Kind of tired of everyone blaming Sano's weight on his inability to train during the off season. You don't get to 300 lbs. by lack of training, you get there by eating everything you can reach. As someone noted earlier, that extra 50 lbs is going to catch up with him, if it hasn't already, in injuries.

I enjoy seeing all the suggested contracts for a 1B with gold glove level defense batting over 300. Yeah, loads of those guys available for under five or six mil.

Meh. Trade Kepler and a package of lower level prospects for Archer, then use all the money we saved on Darvish to steal Martinez from the AL East. Not gonna happen, but fun to think about.

I agree that signing Darvish now is a good fit for the Twins. Give him what it takes to close the deal, be it more money for five years, a sixth year, or some kind of player/team option package. I also want everyone else who thinks signing Darvish is a good idea to agree not to whine about how his contract is a boat anchor on the team three years from now when his production declines, the way everyone has with Mauer.

I don't like the clock, but the visit limits are okay. However, if you're going to limit timeouts for the catcher to go visit the mound, then limit them for the batter as well. If the catcher can only go to the mound once per inning, then all batters should only get to call time to step out of the box once per inning. To be more fair, I'd say one mound visit per batter, and limit it to 10 seconds, once out of the box per batter, and once off the rubber for the pitcher.

I like this idea a lot. You could replace those 30 seconds between innings with 10 second in-game ads while the next batter makes his way to the plate.

I don't know if I'd call it "working the ump," but rather "knowing the ump." When I've coached I always told players to be sure to watch every pitch in every at bat so that when they get to the plate they know where this particular ump's strike zone is. If the ump is calling strikes five inches below the knee, you better not be surprised to get a strike called when you don't swing at that. Maybe you take that pitch with no strikes or one strike, but if you have a two strike count, you better be swinging.