49 thoughts on “Game 49: Houston @ Minnesota”

  6. Pretty sorry state of affairs when you play three against the Astros, dodging both Keuchel and McCullers, face a rookie and a spot-starter, and manage only to go 6-21 (so far) with RISP.

    [edited to add] 30 K's over the three games certainly don't help matters.

      1. The premise was based on not facing their two best starters, but you know ... I typed that out and thought the same thing.

      2. League splits this year for RISP: .258/.344/.424. It's slightly better than the overall line of .245/.313/.411.

    2. Pitching change: Ryan Pressly replaces Hector Santiago.

      ...
      Molitor agrees with you.

  8. This factoid still gets me:

    [Springer] ... drafted by Minnesota in the 48th round following his senior season, but did not sign and went on to attend the University of Connecticut. Played three seasons at UConn before being drafted by Houston with the 11th overall selection in the June 2011 draft...

  11. I decided to go for a bicycle ride this afternoon rather than listen to the Twins game. I think I made the right decision.

  12. I think two or three random citizens could have done as well as the Twins bullpen has in this series.

  13. Cory, given what happened after, I think we can safely say that Castro's home run did not give the Twins "momentum".

  17. Well, that's what happens when you use your best reliever in a non-save situation.

  18. Gimenez still has a better ERA than Drew Rucinski, and is just barely behind Belisle and Pressly.

  19. This has the distinct feel of the moment we reference in October "where it all started to go wrong." I hope this is a bit of an anomaly.

    1. Also, the Astros are the best team in the AL. Lot of good teams got swept by the Cubs last year, too. #socal

  20. All we need is three grand slams!

    I assume, without checking, that no team has ever hit three grand slams in the same inning. So if we do it now, that would be a record!

  21. If not for this series, I'd be a lot more disappointed that the Twins are going on a west coast trip and I won't be staying up late enough to hear the games.

  23. Has anyone ever hit for the cycle in a game that his team lost by ten runs? It seems unlikely.

  24. There is no excuse for having to use a position player to pitch more than once in a season, let alone thrice. Let Pressly keep throwing batting practice and then cut him after the game.

    1. Pressly was taken out when it was still just a 2-run game. I honestly think if the inning hadn't ended so quickly after Castro's home run that Duffey would have been in the game right away instead of Pressly. And of course neither Pressly or Duffey got any outs, so leaving them out there is pointless since the game would never end. Everybody but Santana pretty much got torched this series, so the Twins pretty much just ran into a hot team that exposed a weak bullpen. It does make Santana's outing on Monday look very impressive.

      1. Ryan Pressly's ERA is over 9.00 through 2 months. No excuse for that.

    2. Or is there??

  26. Hard to believe this team lasted until the 15th inning on Sunday, which means the bullpen gave up just 3 runs in 8.2 innings or something like that before Santiago gave up a couple solo homers in the 15th. For the whole Rays series, the Twins bullpen had a 2.76 ERA in 16 2/3 innings. I would say this series is just as much about running into a very hot team as it was about a bad bullpen. I do believe the bullpen is the biggest weakness of the team. The good news is, the Twins have Mejia and Gibson starting the next 2 games. #facepalm

    1. I agree, both that the bullpen is the biggest weakness of the team and that it can't possibly be as bad as it looked in this series. The Chattanooga bullpen wouldn't be as bad as the Twins bullpen looked in this series.

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