yarnivek1972

I may have to post this under the official scoring thread. Margot was awarded an RBI. I thought the rule is no RBI on a double play.

Very odd that Padres didn't pinch hit IMO. Second and third, no one out. 0-0. Your pitcher is over 90 pitches anyway. Seems like a no-brainer.

Moot point now I guess.

For those watching: was that a legitimate hit or a play that likely would have been an error 20 years ago? Gameday says "singled to third baseman Sano".

On the plus side, this is likely the last inning for Cy-cin. He's due up third.

According to gameday, the last two pitches were above Spangenberg's head. And he swung at one of them.

Not going to say it. I hope Ben Davis isn't in the lineup though.

St. Charles. Although, since a major employer left a few years back, not so much.

Just saw on the crawl that Dustin Pedroia was just placed on DL. Not that Dozier is likely to clear waivers. Escobar or Adrianza might though.

And that inning showed why the Twins were sellers. First and second, nobody out. Top of the order due. No runs. That's actually statistically very hard to do.

Padres baseball. Drop it. More accurately: throw it away.

Smallish chance of rain? It never rains in southern California!! In other irrelevant (or irreverant) news, one year ago today Max Kepler hit three 2 run HR against Cleveland. I'm going to go out on a limb and say he doesn't do that tonight at Petco.

The Twins won 13 games after August 8 last year.

If my memory serves me correctly, just because a trade isn't announced by 4 pm edt, doesn't mean it hasn't happened. Any number of reasons can delay an announcement.

I wouldn't call a 26 year old with 2 plus years MLB service time a prospect. I'd call him a career AAAA player.

I'm having a very difficult time figuring out what your goal is by trading Kepler. To get a minor league prospect? Trades like that just don't happen. Kepler is more or less still a prospect himself. I'm not sure I have ever heard of a prospect for prospect trade. A proven MLB pitcher? For Kepler? Now? No way. He's not going to fetch that kind of a return. Not controllable AND proven. You could probably get a rental for Kepler, but why do that? Kepler has the best OPS vs RHP of ANYONE on the Twins roster. Including Sano and Rosario. Literally, the only flaw in his game is not being able to hit LHP at ALL. Against RHP, he hits for avg and power. His BB walk rate is good. His K rate is fine. If the Twins coaches can't help Kepler improve vs LHP, they need different coaches. Kepler will probably never hit LHP as well as RHP. Most lefties don't. But he doesn't need to either. He just needs to be serviceable vs LHP. Even a modest .600 OPS vs LHP would make his overall numbers outstanding. Kepler has a .190 BABIP vs LHP. That would seem to suggest he's had some bad luck against them this year as well. Some of it is being a predictable pull hitter, true enough. But .190? That's insanely low. Just doing a little "what if" math, if Kepler had a BABIP of .275 vs LHP, even with no additional walks or extra base hits, his OPS vs LHP would be close to .600. That works out to 6 scratch/bloop/worm burner singles instead of outs. Morneau didn't hit LHP that well right away either. I don't think he was ever sub .400 OPS against them, but I also don't think Kepler is going to continue being THAT bad against them. It wasn't until Morneau had been in the league 3 years that he started hitting LHP well.

Are you suggesting trading Kepler? Why? He's probably the second best all around hitter on the roster. Yes, he needs to improve vs LHP. But he's young enough to believe he can.

Next time the CBA rolls around (actually, it might not need Union approval), MLB should think about having a floating trade deadline. Have it float so that it always falls on either the last Monday or Thursday of July. There is a limited MLB schedule today. Barely half the teams are playing. On a typical Monday, it's more like 75-80%. The fact that today is the trade deadline is 100% the reason why. Some teams could be 3-4 players short at any given time. It's a logistical nightmare. Now imagine if today was Saturday. Probably be playing two games short players.

I would say that Tom Kelly added 3-4 wins to the total every year with his moves. And Kelly developed players. Larkin, Harper, Mack, Knoblauch, Lawton, Hunter, Jones, Koskie, Mientkiewicz. All prospered and improved their games at the MLB level. That's been missing since he left. Is there really anyone you can point to since Kelly retired and say "this guy was so-so when he got here, but he sure did develop into a nice player."? Mauer, Morneau and Cuddyer came in with uber talent. Frankly, none of them (Morneau maybe) overacheived or improved at the MLB level.. Mauer is essentially the same hitter now as the day he came up. AJ Pierzynski maybe. The pitching track record is less successful, but IMO a large part of that was the organizational philosophy of drafting pitch to contact types. Big strikeout guys cost more, after all.

I would assume Garver moving around more is directly connected to Jason Castro being under contract for the next two seasons. Also, in this day of 3, MAYBE 4 man benches, the days of a back up catcher only being able to catch are probably over.

I would expect Enns to be up as soon as Colon or Gibson moves on. As has been mentioned, he's as good as anyone not named Ervin or Jose that the Twins have trotted out there this year.

Something that has to be considered an oddity are Rogers' platoon splits. He has a lower batting avg vs LHB but not nearly the spread of 2016. He's done a far better job throwing strikes. Although, I would imagine some of his walks vs RHB were intentional or semi-intentional. But Rogers has allowed 3 HR to LHB in just 50 or so PA. In over 110 PA vs RHB, he's allowed 3 HR as well. Obviously, a much better ratio vs RHB. Would seem to suggest that he has hung a couple breaking balls to LHB. Rogers was pitching far over his head this year. Right now, his season ERA is about where it probably should be: 3.8.

Ok. So, I've been on vacation all week. My online time has been pretty small in general, even less on this site. What's up with Buxton? A week ago he was supposedly on track to return Tuesday.

Maybe it is just anecdotal memory, but the Twins don't seem to play Oakland well, especially in Oakland. Point being, I wouldn't be looking at this series to make up ground, especially with no Ervin, no Jose.

So, now with 3 teams ahead of the Twins for the second wild card spot, is it officially time to go in to sell mode? There are two additional teams within one game of the Twins also. SELL, SELL, SELL!!