bighat

Turned on the game halfway through only to watch Correa, Polanco and Kepler - the top of the order - all strike out in a 1-2-3 inning. Nobody even made contact, I think Polanco foul tipped one into the catcher's mitt. Otherwise that was it, inning over. These games we're watching aren't pitcher's duels. These are middle of the rotation pitchers throwing 93 MPH right down the middle of the plate and nobody's squaring anything up. The kid in KC the other day had a 10.45 ERA coming into the game and he shut the Twins down. The most exciting thing that happened was when Sano fouled one straight back and Bremer said "ooooooh, he was right on that one". Really? Sano's a 30 HR+ per year guy, and we're supposed to inch forward in our seats because he fouls off a ball from a soft-tossing rookie? Fans deserve way better than what they're getting this year. Hitters are way, way behind. Thing is, even when MLB gets a full spring training, hitters are still behind for the first few weeks of the season. We may be in for another month of this, and if that's true a lot of fans are going to walk away.

That's just so crazy....it just might work. I love the idea! What have we got to lose?

I mean....we'll take it. Twins need every win they can get this year, by hook or by crook. The Sox completely gave it away, and the Twins almost gave it back. Two teams that are struggling horribly offensively right now and are pressing on defense. If the Sox are hitting, Anderson just puts that ball in his pocket and right now we'd be tied 1-1 in the 35th inning. Pagan got it done, but good closers go 1-2-3 and we go home without the drama. That kind of effort isn't really going to get it done most of the time. Twins can't score at all this year, Royals and Sox can't score either, is scoring wayyyy down in baseball right now? Or is this just happening to AL Central teams that play outdoors?

I hear ya, but what's the point of wasting a roster spot on a guy who can't get outs when it counts? Ideally your mop-up guy can still get the job done in a tight situation, at the very least they should be able to hold their own.

Looks like this is one of those instances where Rocco's really going to see if Jax is worth an MLB roster spot. No use in just putting the guy in 6-run games, see if he's able to do the real job. If not, here's a light rail ticket.

Brandon Kintzler gave the Twins a couple big years. I guess he was more of a surprise than a highly touted guy.

Might as well be 10-0 at this point.

Nelson Cruz.

Not just lefties, Kepler in particular loves that pitch. He hit 3 HRs off Trevor Bauer on that exact same pitch a couple years ago.

Correa strikeout, Polanco strikeout, Kepler strikeout. Just unwatchable. These guys are terrible right now. Why Buxton's on the bench is beyond me, unless he asked out he should be in there.

I haven't heard a peep about it.

It's tough to hide Jeffers, Kepler and Sano at the same time. You can see Baldelli is trying to space them out, but it might be better at this point to bat them 7-8-9 and just forfeit those innings and play for runs when the other guys are up.

No Bux tonight?

They will turn it around - the question is how long will it take? Took them until July last year, and by then the pitching had cratered and there was a new problem to fix. Season was over before it even started. Unfortunately, even if Buxton, Correa, Polanco and Urshela get hot, the Twins still have the Larnach-Kepler-Sano-Jeffers problem. The Twins need at least 3 of that group to start firing on all cylinders to have a chance, even if a guy like Gordon emerges as a serviceable player. It's a marathon not a sprint, it doesn't have to all come together at once. But we have to expect to see some progress, somewhere, from someone, very soon.

Ball seems to be jumping off Gordon's bat these days, the guy's a ballplayer and would like to see him in the lineup as often as possible. He should be ahead of Larnach on the depth chart, it's not even close right now. Get Larnach out of here and back to AAA, we've found our 3rd regular outfielder.

I don't know if this is a controversial opinion or not, but.... I don't like it when announcers say things like "The count is even at 2-2", or "that pitch evens the count at 1-1". It's not "even"!!! The count is heavily in favor of the pitcher! In terms of fairness, an "even" count would be like 2-1 or 3-2.

I'd be very shocked if the Twins manage to win this game. It's just awful, nobody wants to step up.

Oh yeah, there's our Byron Buxton!

Max isn't hitting anything hard, just a bunch of dribblers and pop-ups.

I've always liked Dick Bremer and think overall he's a good fit. Agree that he was best paired with Blyleven. Morneau is solid, but he's a bit of a "golly gee whiz" type and so is Bremer so it's a bit much sometimes. I think most of the criticism of Bremer comes when the team is not playing well. Fans are frustrated and he's the voice of the team. Sometimes we wish he'd say "GET IT TOGETHER OUT THERE!" but he's not that type.

Buxton will be leading off and DH'ing against the Royals this afternoon.

"If"? I think we're already there. Rocco was DH'ing Ryan Jeffers last night and had him batting 8th. Just read that sentence again to get a feel for how bleak things are right now. So far we've had all the ingredients for a 2021 repeat: ice cold hitting and a sprinkling of bullpen meltdowns that cost the Twins winnable games. Decent starting pitching that won't last long. And by the time the Twins' hitters catch up, all the magic fairy dust will have come off guys like Bundy and Archer. It's 2021 all over again. The only hope this team has rests in the hands of Buxton, who might single-handedly help them to 80 wins if he plays every game the rest of the season. And that's just not going to happen. And the dude should be on the IL if he's not going to play so we can get a look at some other guys ASAP. There is just something about the aura of this team that feels off. Watching them, they all just look like they're stuck and nobody's clicking at the same time. Every small spark is immediately snuffed out and almost every key decision turns out to be wrong. Everything just feels out of tune.

Royals playing some amazing small-ball there. Those 2 runs should be enough to put any end to a comeback here. No reason to suffer needlessly, we'll see you all next game. Here's hoping we have more positive things to discuss one of these days.

As a young lad I was at the first Cubs game under the lights - 8/8/88. Philadelphia's Phil Bradley led off the game with a HR, and in the bottom of the first inning Morganna The Kissing Bandit ran out of the stands and tried to kiss Ryne Sandberg. Bill Murray was in the booth with Harry Caray. During the rain delay, the Cubs players ran out onto the field and did slip-n-slides on the tarp. The game was rained out and thus didn't count. Best game that never was.

About 10 weak pop-ups to shallow right tonight for this team. I'm guessing the spin will be "they are trying to hit it the other way, what a success!"