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Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was livid over a ridiculous overturned call on a play at the plate in extra innings of today's game against the Toronto Blue Jays. Here are some of Baldelli's comments as well as several highlights of the play, a reaction from a Twins fan on the call and discussion on the home plate collision rules. View full video

This is now the third-to-last series before the season is officially over and it also is the final home series and that, my friends, is a pretty sad thing to type out. The not sad thing is that the Kansas City Royals are bad and have no reservations regarding their awfulness. It makes for a good opportunity for the Twins to stack some wins but it also makes it really hard for yours truly to think of something interesting to say about a team that has almost nothing. Oh, I have also decided to break my self-imposed and non-existent rules regarding my title names because good lord, there is almost no good music from Missouri. My options were basically Chuck Berry and Scott Joplin and I don’t feel like listening to ragtime for the better part of an hour so I went with Semisonic because it’s a series in Minnesota, they're from Minnesota, and that’s good enough for me.Brief Overview: Let's start with a number: 97. Is that the amount of passing yards Kirk Cousins had last Sunday or the amount of losses the 2019 Royals have already suffered? It feels like the former but it is actually the latter as KC continues to lose without a care in the world. With two teams already at 100 losses on the season, the Royals look to make the prestigious club just a bit bigger as their tank continues to run throughout the Central. What They Do Well: As with most teams that are bad, they must be good in some way that makes them actually pretty annoying to play against. The Royals do this by being fourth in MLB in stolen bases with 110 swiped bags. Along with this, they have four players with steal totals in the double digits so their speed comes from a variety of players. Although, Billy Hamilton is no longer on the team so their total speed is weakened a touch but still remains a potent threat. What else is really annoying? Playing good defense. Can you guess what the Royals do well? Yep, their UZR/150 is ninth in MLB so expect a well-rounded group that won’t give away many free outs. A lot of their great defense comes from their middle infield duo of Nicky Lopez and Adalberto Mondesi, both grading out well along with some good outfield defense from a number of players who could make hitting fly balls a less fun adventure than it usually is. What They Do Not Do Well: I’ll make this quick because I don’t have the time to write a proper thesis here. Probably the most immediately egregious aspect of the Royals is their starting pitching, as currently they are fifth to last in MLB for starting pitching fWAR. That by itself is terrible but also consider that both of their top two starters, Brad Keller and Jakob Junis, have been shut down for the rest of the year. This leaves Danny Duffy as their best remaining starter and a trail of sadness follows him down the list of KC starters. It will be interesting to see how they string together innings during this series given this deficit. Alright, well, they can’t pitch, but can they hit? No! Their team wRC+ of 83 is third to last in MLB and also tied for Tim Laudner’s career mark. They have an interesting core of Hunter Dozier, Jorge Soler, Whit Merrifield, and Adalberto Mondesi, but the drop-off after those players is immediate and quite frightening. Alex Gordon is just below the average mark at 93 but it gets uglier than the color palette in Solo: A Star Wars Story after that. So much so that I’ll leave it up to the imagination of the reader in order to make this article more pleasant. Individuals Of Note: Take a gander at the home run leaderboard for 2019 and you’ll see a lot of names like Pete Alonso, Eugenio Suárez, Mike Trout … Jorge Soler??? Yes, the once uber-prospect for the Cubs has figured it out in 2019 and is mashing baseballs like they owe him money. He’s been especially spicy recently as his wRC+ in August was 173 and in September it has been 172 so he is swinging a bat made of pure lava. Hunter Dozier is another one of the players that make up the interesting hitting core of the Royals and he has had a peculiar season in 2019. His wRC+ on a month-to-month basis resembles an upside down pyramid as he cratered fairly hard in June but has since recovered. His overall wRC+ is 129 but he has also struck out more and walked less in the second half compared to the first half, possibly a sign of decline. Flip over to the reliever section of FanGraphs and do a little scrolling down the K% list and you’ll find Scott Barlow there at 37th among qualified relievers by K%. That total would be the third highest in the Twins’ bullpen (behind Tyler Duffey and Taylor Rogers), but Barlow is a random reliever who has been a better strikeout artist than guys like Roberto Osuna and Joe Kelly in 2019 and he deserves some credit because being a middle reliever on the 2019 Royals is a worse fate than being a cartel leader in Breaking Bad. Recent History: The Twins and Royals last played a three-game series at Target Field in early August and the Twins swept the Royals. Overall, the Twins are 9-3 against the Royals this season. Recent Trajectories: The Twins are 8-7 over their last five series while the Royals are 7-8 over their last five series. Pitching Matchups: Thursday: Gibson vs Montgomery Friday: TBD vs Skoglund Saturday: Berríos vs Sparkman Sunday: Pérez vs López Ending Thoughts: Kansas City is a movable object and while the Twins haven’t quite been an unstoppable force recently, this is still a series they should win. Don’t be fooled by the Royals’ recent record as most of their wins have come from the likes of Detroit, Miami, and Chicago, although they just played a respectable series against Oakland to their credit. I still don’t see this series getting out of hand unless some series shenanigans ensue so I’ll call for the Twins to take three of four and then be on my way. Click here to view the article

Ah, the glorious feeling of coming home for an extended home stand and seeing the Kansas City Royals as your opponent. The Twins took care of business on the road and got rewarded with a great opportunity to put some distance between them and Cleveland. Unfortunately for me, Kansas City has yielded a low amount of known music acts so I am forced to make a Charlie Parker reference in my title. It was either this, Tech N9ne, or Puddle Of Mudd, I chose well.Brief Overview: Again, I previewed this team before (funny how division rivals work) and not much has changed for this squad except that they have gotten slightly worse after selling Homer Bailey, Jake Diekman, and Martín Maldonado. This is a team that wants to lose just as much as the Twins want to win and at 70 losses already, they are doing a fine job at that. Maybe the Twins can help them in their endeavors. What They Do Well: This team is still very fast! Despite the baseball meta shifting toward power and away from speed, the Royals stand as one of the few teams who refuse to evolve. They have swiped 91 bases and have four players with double-digit steals, a major difference in philosophy compared to the Twins who prefer smacking home runs and staying put (the Twins of course lead the league in homers but also are dead last in steals). Along with stealing, this team still plays excellent defense as their team defense rating on FanGraphs is the second highest in baseball and the highest in the AL. It shall be interesting to see if the Twins lose out on some scoring chances because of a nice diving catch or a well-played stop in the infield. Prepare to be annoyed. What They Do Not Do Well: How long do I have? Oh man… Well, this team is very poor in many ways. The first of which is that their starting pitching is the fifth lowest in MLB by fWAR. After trading Homer Bailey, only one of their starters has more than 1.0 fWAR (Brad Keller) and only two have tossed more than 100 innings so far this year. They have the fifth lowest starter K/9 in baseball but they make up for not being able to strike people out by walking them too much as their BB/9 is the seventh highest in baseball. They have decided to bring back the Mike-Montgomery-as-a-starter experiment and so far he has struck out just five in 11 1/3 innings. Amazing. On the hitting side of things, their 86 team wRC+ isn’t just Kurt Suzuki’s Twins wRC+, but also the fifth worst in baseball. Not being able to hit or get quality starting pitching is like trying to build a Lego house on a beach as a tsunami comes screaming in at you while you blissfully stay focused on your soon-to-be meaningless task. I suppose that makes the Twins the tsunami in this scenario which is kind of mean but hopefully not fully inaccurate. Individuals Of Note: I’m being somewhat mean so I’ll let up here. Their positional core of Whit Merrifield, Hunter Dozier, and Adalberto Mondesi is more than respectable as all have already reached the 2.0 fWAR mark this year. Although Mondesi has been on the IL since the middle of June and his status for the series is in question. Beyond them, they also have Jorge Soler who has put up a solid 116 wRC+ this year thanks in part to his 28 home runs. He represents their major power threat and will no doubt be in the middle of the lineup when he plays. They have also called up Bubba Starling somewhat recently and he is a very interesting player. Starling was the fifth overall pick in 2011 but saw his prospect status crater after he hit a wall at AA in 2015-2016. He stayed in the farm for much longer than he and the team anticipated, but now he is finally in the majors after years of waiting. His numbers so far are uninspiring, but he still holds some very interesting tools and is one of the few players whose athleticism could be compared to Byron Buxton with any hint of seriousness. On the pitching side of things, Brad Keller has been by far their best starting pitcher as he sits at the 1.7 fWAR mark. Despite striking out just 16.6% of batters, a number that even Pat Dean and his 16.7% Twins K rate scoffs at, Keller makes it work by getting an elite amount of ground balls as his 51.5% GB rate is the ninth highest among all qualified MLB starters. Ian Kennedy remains one of the very best relievers in baseball this year as he is eighth among all relievers in fWAR. It is somewhat surprising that basically no trade rumors came about focused on him but his contract probably discouraged some teams and so he remains a dominant force in the back-end of the Royals pen. Recent History: The Twins have played three series against the Royals this year and are 6-3 against them on the year. The Twins swept a two-game series in KC in April, then took two of three at home in June, and then split a four-game series in KC the same month. Recent Trajectories: The Twins are 8-8 over their last five series while the Royals are also 8-8. The Royals over that stretch swept the White Sox in a four-game series, took two on the road against the Braves, and also got swept in three at home against the Blue Jays, I have no clue what to make of that. Pitching Match-ups: Friday: Pérez vs Sparkman Saturday: Gibson vs Duffy Sunday: Odorizzi vs Keller Ending Thoughts: The Twins finally saw their schedule soften up a bit as they played the White Sox and the Marlins in back-to-back series and now they get another chance to pounce on a weak team. In my eyes, this team is on the verge of breaking out and getting back in the form we saw earlier in the year where they were taking care of teams with such a ruthless efficiency that hit-men around the globe nodded in approval. Now, before I predict what the series is, I must bring up the fact that I am a perfect 6-for-6 in my predictions so far, good thing I can use my clairvoyance for something as useful as this. The great news? I am feeling a sweep for the Twins as they take all three games against KC this weekend. You’re welcome. Click here to view the article