All Things 2024 Minnesota Twins In-Season Thread

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Breakin' The Plane said:
Ober had retired 8 batters in a row. It's not fair to say he "couldn't" got six innings. The manager decided that he had reached an arbitrary number of pitches and was done for the night. The manager also decided with a two-run lead, that he needed to pull the #1 and #2 batters for pinch hitters in the fifth inning. Let your best players play. Way too worried about "the matchups".
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Agree 100% on both points.
 


Kirby Puckett had four hits in his MLB debut as the Twins beat the first-place Angels 5-0 in Anaheim on this date in 1984.

Puckett, hitting leadoff, grounded out to short to start the game. He collected singles in his next four at-bats, becoming the sixth player in American League history to debut with a four-hit performance.

Frank Viola pitched a complete game, four-hit shutout.

Kirby collected 16 hits in his first seven major league games, hitting .485. He finished the season with 165 hits in 128 games, batting .296 and finishing third to Seattle’s Alvin Davis and Mark Langston in American League Rookie of the Year balloting. (Minnesota’s Tim Teufel came in fourth.)

22-year-old Twins catcher Wilson Ramos also went 4-for-5 in his MLB debut on May 2, 2010. The following night, he went 3-for-4 with a double, becoming the third player in MLB history with seven hits in his first two games, and the first since Nanny Fernandez in 1942.
 

Breakin' The Plane said:
Ober had retired 8 batters in a row. It's not fair to say he "couldn't" go six innings. The manager decided that he had reached an arbitrary number of pitches and was done for the night. The manager also decided with a two-run lead, that he needed to pull the #1 and #2 batters for pinch hitters in the fifth inning. Let your best players play. Way too worried about "the matchups".
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If they had the full bullpen at their disposal, then I don't think removing Ober is that big of a deal there. But they knew their big bullpen arms were not available. I'd rather let Ober at least start the 6th and let Sands go more than 11 pitches than what we saw last night. I don't know how they could think letting Alcala try to pitch 2 innings would be a good thing. He historically has terrible numbers when trying to pitch a 2nd inning.

With all those guys not available, it wasn't a great situation either way but feel like they picked the one that was most destined to fail. What would they have done if the game went 11 innings? Let Alcala's arm fall off?
 

Last night's loss definitely on Rocco and his Spreadsheet Overlords. There's zero excuse for removing Larnach for Margot ever much less in the 5th inning. And if you know you have no Jax or Duran, you can't pull your starter after 5 innings and 84 pitches.
 




tikited said:
I'm having no trouble...
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howeda7 said:
Last night's loss definitely on Rocco and his Spreadsheet Overlords. There's zero excuse for removing Larnach for Margot ever much less in the 5th inning. And if you know you have no Jax or Duran, you can't pull your starter after 5 innings and 84 pitches.
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If you want to put Margot in for defensive purposes over Larnach, I understand. But when Larnach's the DH, you can't exactly do that.
Larnach is batting .354. Margot is .172 I'm no Mathlete, but one of those numbers appears to be more than twice as much as the other.

This regime's philosophy seems to be: If you want to stay in the lineup, we need you to hit lefties better.
It also seems to be: Until you show you can hit lefties, we're going to pull you for a righty.

Seems counterproductive.
 



Breakin' The Plane said:
If you want to put Margot in for defensive purposes over Larnach, I understand. But when Larnach's the DH, you can't exactly do that.
Larnach is batting .354. Margot is .172 I'm no Mathlete, but one of those numbers appears to be more than twice as much as the other.

This regime's philosophy seems to be: If you want to stay in the lineup, we need you to hit lefties better.
It also seems to be: Until you show you can hit lefties, we're going to pull you for a righty.

Seems counterproductive.
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Margot isn't even good defensively. At best it's a marginal upgrade and you can't do it in the 5th inning. If you want to PH Margo for Kiriloff in the 7th or later, fine. He's struggling anyway. Larnach it should never happen. Frankly unless it's Jeffers for Vazquez or Kiriloff for Margot etc, you shouldn't be pinch-hitting in the 5th inning period. You're removing your best hitters for multiple at bats.
 

on Ober - saw a note that 84 pitches (his outing Tuesday) is the 2nd-most pitches he has thrown in an outing this year. whether fans like it or not, the Twins are trying to keep the pitchers' work-loads down. If Ober wants to pitch deeper in games, he needs to be more efficient.

on Rocco - Strib has an article on how he handles lineups.

The Twins' manager normally writes out each day's lineup the night before the game, while consulting a package of statistics on each player and each opposing pitcher. And that system generally produces a batting order unique to that day, that game.
"The last couple of years, we haven't put together what a lot of people would deem your ideal offensive lineup. We've been able to cope with that OK. … We have a lot of guys that are getting the job done."
"I don't care if I make one [lineup] and we bash them to death with 300 homers and I sit back and slap everyone five. That's fine. And if we have to use every player every night and pinch hit more than any team in the league, that's fine, too."
"I like thinking about the game," Baldelli said. "So yeah, I enjoy working through [various ideas] trying to find ways to win. I do enjoy that."
 

short ornery norwegian said:
on Ober - saw a note that 84 pitches (his outing Tuesday) is the 2nd-most pitches he has thrown in an outing this year. whether fans like it or not, the Twins are trying to keep the pitchers' work-loads down. If Ober wants to pitch deeper in games, he needs to be more efficient.

on Rocco - Strib has an article on how he handles lineups.

The Twins' manager normally writes out each day's lineup the night before the game, while consulting a package of statistics on each player and each opposing pitcher. And that system generally produces a batting order unique to that day, that game.
"The last couple of years, we haven't put together what a lot of people would deem your ideal offensive lineup. We've been able to cope with that OK. … We have a lot of guys that are getting the job done."
"I don't care if I make one [lineup] and we bash them to death with 300 homers and I sit back and slap everyone five. That's fine. And if we have to use every player every night and pinch hit more than any team in the league, that's fine, too."
"I like thinking about the game," Baldelli said. "So yeah, I enjoy working through [various ideas] trying to find ways to win. I do enjoy that."
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I miss the days of "Redmond's hitting 3rd because Mauer hits 3rd and it's too disruptive to change it."
 

Gopher_In_NYC said:
The gamble paid off😉
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Just for fun...

Dodgers lineup 1-5

1. Betts .349 Best leadoff hitter
2. Ohtani .365 Best #2 hitter of all time
3. Freeman .293 Slow start.
4. Smith .331 Best hitting catcher.
5. Muncy .263 Usually hits around .220

Combined 33 HR's.
 




Breakin' The Plane said:
If you want to put Margot in for defensive purposes over Larnach, I understand. But when Larnach's the DH, you can't exactly do that.
Larnach is batting .354. Margot is .172 I'm no Mathlete, but one of those numbers appears to be more than twice as much as the other.

This regime's philosophy seems to be: If you want to stay in the lineup, we need you to hit lefties better.
It also seems to be: Until you show you can hit lefties, we're going to pull you for a righty.

Seems counterproductive.
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And I know it's a small sample size this year but Margot has not been hitting lefties very well. I understand the overall strategy but in this case 1) it's only the 5th inning and 2) Larnach has been on fire while Margot has stunk. Margot hitting there, at best, is a minimal gain. Him hitting in place of Larnach later on in the game is a big loss.
 


tikited said:
Just for fun...

Dodgers lineup 1-5

1. Betts .349 Best leadoff hitter
2. Ohtani .365 Best #2 hitter of all time
3. Freeman .293 Slow start.
4. Smith .331 Best hitting catcher.
5. Muncy .263 Usually hits around .220

Combined 33 HR's.
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And yet they’ll choke in the playoffs once again Norton with Disaster Davey at the helm
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 


What this line-up needs is the killer combo of Margot and Vazquez back to back again. Margot must have bought the compromising pictures of Rocco from Jake Cave.

 


There are currently 21 qualified hitters in MLB that are below the Mendoza line. This group includes guys like Arozarena, Garver, Benintendi, Polanco, Bichette, Bregman, Goldschmidt, Castellanos and Olson. All guys that are generally good or even elite hitters. In addition, guys like Carroll and Lindor are hitting in the low .200's. It's still early but man there are a lot of good hitters really struggling so far.

Of note, CES has been even worse than Santana, hitting .190 with 2 HR so far.
 


GophersInIowa said:
There are currently 21 qualified hitters in MLB that are below the Mendoza line. This group includes guys like Arozarena, Garver, Benintendi, Polanco, Bichette, Bregman, Goldschmidt, Castellanos and Olson. All guys that are generally good or even elite hitters. In addition, guys like Carroll and Lindor are hitting in the low .200's. It's still early but man there are a lot of good hitters really struggling so far.

Of note, CES has been even worse than Santana, hitting .190 with 2 HR so far.
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There’s 🕳️ in that swing
 

That Seattle trade just looks better and better.

 


From the Parkinglot said:

Just don’t understand the usage of Alcala. With guys like Jackson on the roster why is it Alcala’s job to simply eat the shit at the end of the game.
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Gleeman wrote a blurb about how crappy the Twins have treated him in his career, as he always gets the short end of the straw.
 
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Gopher_In_NYC said:
Gleeman wrote a blurb about how crappy the Twins have tested him in his career, as he always gets the short end of the straw.
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Guy with injury concerns and no real need to be out there for two innings yet he’s always the guy having to eat the shit and then get sent back.

I think Alcala for 1 inning in the 6th or 7th would be amazing not the 8th and the 9th.

If you are gonna use your bullpen a lot then guys that throw 12 pitches like Sands did in that game need to come back out and pitch another inning or at least throw a few more pitches.

Anyway good win last night.
 


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