bighat

He should get the start today (Saturday) with the right hander Urena on the mound.

To see the Twins catch their breath with the rain delay and come out and add more insurance was nice. Detroit is awful, might be the only team worse than the Twins in the AL right now. At this point, if the Twins really are a .500 ballclub or better, they should have no problems with the Tigers and should sweep them. Desperate for wins and on the ropes with terrible injuries, now isn't the time to rest anyone or put on the brakes. Garlick, Cave, and Kepler is the outfield from now on? Yeesh. Time for Donaldson and/or Cruz to start carrying this team. This is what they are here for. I think when Stashak blew the 4-0 lead and it became 4-3, many of us didn't know if we could take any more. The bullpen continues to disappoint, today it was Stashak's turn but it's always someone. The guy's been pretty bad this year, time for a change. Call St. Paul.

On this date in 2018 the Miami Marlins were 13-21 with the worst bullpen in baseball. They went on to lose 98 games and had the worst record in the league.

Regarding Rocco's handling of starters: In today's MLB, if a guy goes 6 innings and throws 90 pitches - that's the end. He might get one or two more batters, but it's totally normal for any manager to pull their pitcher as they get close to that 100 pitch mark. There are many reasons to blame Rocco - pulling his guys when they hit 100 pitches isn't one of them. That's become an MLB standard.

The strikeouts are a huge problem. I saw Yang Heong-jong get pulled the other day after 3.1 innings (Twins had bases loaded at the time) they showed his numbers on screen. The guy pitched 3.1 innings against the Twins....and had EIGHT strikeouts. That means out of 10 total outs, 8 of them were by strikeout. Awful. The whole Bomba Squad thing is nothing more than a math/probabilities project. Basically, the theory is that if you close your eyes and swing as hard as you can for 27 outs, you should beat your opponent six out of 10 times. It's terrible to watch, hard to cheer for, and at some point the moving pieces in this project (the players) are going to get sick of participating. We're watching the death of new age strategy in real time.

When I saw Yang Heong-jong get pulled the other day after 3.1 innings (Twins had bases loaded at the time) they showed his numbers on screen. The guy pitched 3.1 innings against the Twins....and had EIGHT strikeouts. That means out of 10 total outs, just 2 of them weren't strikeouts. Awful. The whole Bomba Squad thing is nothing more than a math/probabilities project. Basically, the theory is that if you close your eyes and swing as hard as you can for 27 outs, you should beat your opponent six out of 10 times. It's terrible to watch, hard to cheer for, and at some point the moving pieces in this project (the players) are going to get sick of participating. We're watching the death of new age strategy in real time.

Absolutely. While many here panicked about the team's bullpen and run production early on, they were shouted down by the spreadsheet geeks: "Stop worrying. The BABIP is incredibly low, barrel % rate is high, and the avg. MPH exit velocity is in the top 10% of the league". Who the heck cares if they don't get hits with men on base? You can't create a team based on advanced stats alone. Meanwhile, Eddie Rosario is delivering clutch hits for Cleveland. He won them a ballgame a couple nights ago in extras. I don't care what his OPBS+ is, I know the guy got clutch hits when needed. No, I'm not pining to get Eddie back, I'm not going down that dark hallway. What I am saying is that we have zero clutch performers now that he's gone, and it doesn't matter what their stats are because they are not hitting when they need to. None of 'em. Twins have now lost home series to Seattle, Pittsburgh, and Texas. They are getting absolutely smoked by just about everyone and are absolutely the laughing stock of MLB right now. This is worse than the worst case scenario anyone could have imagined going into the year.

I think every team in the league could say the same thing.

Since Week 2 of the season, we've kept asking ourselves: "is this rock bottom?" Seriously, could it get any worse? I think at this point, a season-ending injury to Buxton would be about the only thing that could make this fan base more depressed. Only the Rockies and Tigers - two teams predicted to be historically terrible - are worse than the Twins so far. The Twins haven't been able to win home series against the Pirates, Mariners, Rangers. What the in the ever-loving name of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is going to happen when we go to Chicago next week? New York? Houston? It's going to be a blood bath.

Looking forward to it, thanks!

Yeah, nobody's going to sell a top arm in May. Not even a basement-dweller. By the way, one arm isn't going to change this. Bringing in Green or whoever isn't going to all of a sudden make Rogers, Duffey, or Colome any better. A dominant reliever may help the Twins win - max - a game every 1.5 weeks or so. The Twins need everyone to be above average, and that's not happening. The offense is waking up but it's pretty meaningless if they can't stay consistent. This could very well be a really ugly season that results in a complete tear-down.

I usually feel relieved and happy when the Twins win. This was one of those games that, despite the win, I didn't feel too great. Rangers awful defense gave this game away - a team with even middling speed in the OF would have caught or cut off many of those balls. Even with Texas giving this team every advantage, the bullpen nearly blew it. There seem to be no arms in the bullpen that can get this done. They look awful from top to bottom. Rocco needs to realize that a 5-0 lead right now is the same as a 1-0 lead: it's precarious. Here's hoping Kirilloff stays hot. Great to see Donaldson heating up. Remember, he's the highest paid guy on the team and he is supposed to be our best player. Think about that: we've been talking about Cruz and Buxton for the last couple years, meanwhile Donaldson is the guy who's supposed to be our superstar. We really need him to keep this up if the Twins are going to have a chance to stay in these ballgames. Maeda looked decent, can't complain about zero runs and 8K over 5+.

Again, I'm a huge Kirilloff fan like everyone else but just wanted to point this out: It's worth noting that Kirilloff had no other hits in his 12 at-bats this weekend beyond the home runs, and he posted a 1:6 BB:K in the series. He's now sporting a .184 average, .200 on-base percentage, 2.6 percent walk rate and 30 percent strikeout rate on the season. Yes we should be encouraged. But let's keep things realistic. He could go 2 weeks before his next home run - let's hope he's able to get some singles and doubles to fall and start walking as well. He's still a rookie.

I think it's a pretty open secret that Rogers is now back in his closer role. There weren't any close games the entire week (Twins were either blown out or vice versa) for Rogers to work.

Concur. I've always been baffled at the criticism of Berrios - I understand that people wanted him to be Pedro Martinez, but not everyone can be that guy. Berrios has always been damn good. Double-digit wins in each of his past seasons (2020 doesn't count), ERA around 3.70 or so, always has high strikeout numbers, and two All-Star nods. Gritty. Gamer. He's not on the IL with fingernail or blister problems, he can field his position and is a good teammate. Works HARD in the off-season, great work ethic. Wants to be better. Not satisfied with so-so outings. When he signs with another team in free agency, he'll be a huge pickup and if he's not going to be that team's ace, he'll be their #2 guy. No question about it. Then people here are going to start the "Pohlad's are Cheap" mantra, when all the while Berrios was here they bashed him for not being Max Scherzer.

Loving Kirilloff's emergence like everyone else. But since everyone is also talking about Baddoo, let's remember his hot start. The league made adjustments. Sano has had streaks like Kirilloff is having now in his rookie year. The league made adjustments. Before we ditch Polanco and Sano and whoever else because Kirilloff is now good enough to replace them, let's remember that pitching coaches and scouts all over MLB are looking for weaknesses in his swing. He's impressed but it won't be this easy for him moving forward.

I watched it. He was getting hit very hard. Royals were on the button every time they made contact. Colome looked as bad as he's looked all season, zero improvement whatsoever. Might have even been worse.

Polanco has batted .300 over his past 7 games, including a HR and an SB. He was hitless his first week which skews his stats but he's coming out of his slump. Kepler, conversely, has had one good game and that was the first game of the year. Sano hasn't really done anything, aside from showing he can walk (which does count for something).

Great read, love the side-by-sides. Thanks for posting!

Was following on my MLB app and watching highlights all night - every notification was like a little gift. Rortvedt first MLB hit, Kiriloff first MLB homer(s), Buxton with diving catches, scoreless innings from the bullpen....what more could you want? Was reading Do-Hyoung Park this morning and he brought up an interesting point at the end of his article...if Kiriloff continues to play like this, things are awfully crowded: "With Miguel Sanó expected to come off the IL in the coming days, the Twins face an outfield crunch involving Kirilloff, Jake Cave, Max Kepler, Kyle Garlick, Buxton and Luis Arraez. The quality of Kirilloff’s contact might already have made it tough to option him off the roster....." Who's Alex putting on notice? You'd think Cave has the most to lose here. But if Sano continues to struggle, what's next for him?

In my fantasy baseball league, Buxton has the 5th most points of any outfielder in MLB, despite having at least 20 fewer at bats than the guys in front of him.

Just saw this article now - completely agree! Thanks for sharing, enjoy your writing Sherry and hope to see more. Go Twins!

Where would we be without JA Happ? Maeda and Shoemaker are the concerns right now. Berrios, Happ, and Pineda have been solid for the most part. Can't say anything that hasn't been said about Buxton already today. The guy is just unreal. This is the Byron Buxton we thought we'd see during all of those years watching him develop. He has arrived and he's as good or better right now than even the most optimistic projection. May just be the league MVP.

It's fair to say it's time to panic. I'm done trying to be reasonable and listen to everyone telling me that it's still April. Yeah, it's April (almost May 1st but OK), the games count and the Twins are the worst team in baseball thus far. They've won SEVEN games! Seven! They don't look like a good team that's snakebit. They look plum terrible. There is nobody waiting in the wings to save them on offense, Kepler and Sano were actually hurting this team on offense (can't believe that's possible at this point but it's true). The bullpen is awful from top to bottom. No help on the way.