https://youtu.be/blbIFnB6MHc
One of my favorite songs by one of my favorite artists. A young Patty Griffin sings about finally letting go.
(3 votes, average: 6.33 out of 10)
Loading... Trevor Larncah, Alex Kirilloff, and Royce Lewis led the Blue Wahoos. Yeltsin Encarnacion had a big homer for the Miracle.
Date: Wednesday, August 14.
Batting stars: Mitch Garver was 1-for-5 with a home run, his twenty-third. Eddie Rosario was 1-for-4 with a home run (his twenty-sixth) and a walk. Miguel Sano was 1-for-4 with a home run (his twenty-first) and a walk.
Pitching stars: Sam Dyson struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up one hit. Trevor May struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving up a walk.
Opposition stars: Eric Thames was 3-for-4 with a double and two RBIs. Trent Grisham was 2-for-4 with a three-run homer (his second), a walk, and two runs. Keston Hiura was 2-for-4 with a walk.
The game: It looked good for quite a while. Garver led off the game with a home run and Rosario hit a two-out homer to give the Twins a 2-0 lead in the first inning. The Brewers got one back in the bottom of the first when Grisham singled, Yasmani Grandal walked, and Hiura delivered an RBI single.
Each team scored once in the third. Sano hit a one-out homer in the top of the inning. In the bottom, a one-out single by Hiura and two-out singles by Lorenzo Cain and Thames made the score 3-2.
With one out in the top of the fourth, Max Kepler walked, Jonathan Schoop doubled, and Kyle Gibson walked to load the bases. Garver struck out, but Jorge Polanco came through with a two-run single to put the Twins up 5-2. Milwaukee again got one back in the fifth when Mike Moustakas doubled and scored on a Thames single.
The score stayed 5-3 until the eighth. Ryan Braun led off by reaching on a Polanco error. Hernan Perez singled and Grisham followed with a three-run homer, giving the Brewers their first lead of the day at 6-5. The Twins tried to rally in the ninth. With two out, walks to Polanco, Sano, and Rosario loaded the bases. Unfortunately, Matt Albers then found the strike zone again and retired C. J. Cron on a deep fly to center to end the game.
WP: Junior Guerra (6-3). LP: Sergio Romo (2-1). S: Albers (4).
Notes: Kepler remained in center and Marwin Gonzalez in right with Byron Buxton out. Schoop was at second base rather than Luis Arraez, who was used as a pinch-hitter in the ninth. Arraez went 0-for-1 and is batting .348.
It's probably past time to admit that Gibson is never going to take that step forward and become a top pitcher. He is what he is--an average major league starting pitcher--and as he approaches his thirty-second birthday it's unlikely that he'll ever be more than that. That's not a criticism, exactly. There's value in being an average major league starting pitcher. Teams have missed the playoffs because they didn't have one. But I think a lot of the frustration with him comes from people thinking that he could be better than that and that he ought to be better than that. It's just not likely to happen. It's time to simply accept what he is.
We've discussed the number of winnable games the Twins have lost this season. The term "winnable game" is not easy to define. The only way to really know how many the Twins have lost would be to go back through all their games, and even then the definition would be somewhat subjective. And yes, one of the reasons that they've lost more winnable games this year is that they've played more winnable games--there haven't been that many times when they've been blown out. Still, if you want to be a top team, you have to win a pretty high percentage of your winnable games. That's the only way you get a good won-lost record, and that's the way we determine what teams are the top teams. Every time you lose one of those winnable games, it costs you.
The good news, though, is that the Twins are still a half game up on Cleveland. They don't have to win a specific number of games or achieve a certain winning percentage to win the division. They just need to win one more game than Cleveland does in the last forty-two games of the season. We'll see if they can.
Record: The Twins are 72-48, in first place in the American League Central, a half game ahead of Cleveland.
Projected record: We'll just have to settle for 114-48!
I should have remembered the proper "spelling" of Kwik Trip. Sorry, I grew up an SA kid.
Which Trip do you dig the most?
Total Voters: 12
Loading ...Charles Comiskey (1859)
Doggie Miller (1864)
Jack Warner (1872)
Bill Sherdel (1896)
Jim Snyder (1932)
Joey Jay (1935)
Jose Santiago (1940)
Cap Peterson (1942)
Duffy Dyer (1945)
Joe Lis (1946)
Billy Conigliaro (1947)
Tom Kelly (1950)
Joe Cowley (1958)
Randy Johnson (1958)
Jeff Huson (1964)
Scott Brosius (1966)
Chris Singleton (1972)
Oliver Perez (1981)
Jarrod Dyson (1984)
This would have been Mom and Dad A's seventy-third wedding anniversary.
Kyle Gibson
vs
Gio González
Twins with a much needed win to guarantee a season and series split. They need more than splits however. The Yankees are catching up in home runs and the home run differential took a big hit last week. They need a bomba parade to support Gibson.
Stephen Gonsalves and Trevor Hildenberger make rehab appearances in the GCL.
I’m coming to Minnesota! I’m going to fly into the airport, drive out of the cities, walk around for a couple minutes, drive back to the cities, and then immediately fly back! Should be fun.
I’ve been going on a little TVZ jaunt lately. I know this song has been played before, but not this version.
(6 votes, average: 7.50 out of 10)Loading... Date: Tuesday, August 13.
Batting stars: Marwin Gonzalez was 2-for-4 with a three-run homer (his fourteenth) and two runs. Eddie Rosario was 2-for-4 with a double, a walk, and two runs. Mitch Garver was 1-for-5 with a two-run homer, his twenty-second.
Pitching stars: Martin Perez pitched six innings, giving up an unearned run on six hits and four walks and striking out three. Tyler Duffey pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one. Sam Dyson pitched a perfect inning and struck out one. Sergio Romo pitched a scoreless inning.
Opposition stars: Yasmani Grandal was 2-for-4 with a three-run homer (his twentieth) and a walk. Manny Pina was 2-for-4 with a double and a hit-by-pitch. Keston Hiura was 2-for-4 with a walk.
The game: Each team missed chances early. The Brewers had men on first and third in each of the first two innings and did not score. The Twins put men on first and second with one out in the second and did not score. In the third, however, Max Kepler led off with a walk and Garver followed with a two-run homer. With one out, Rosario walked, went to third on a Miguel Sano single, and scored on a ground out to put the Twins up 3-0.
Milwaukee again put two men on in the third and did not score. They got on the board in the fourth, though. Hernan Perez got a one-out single. Chase Anderson's bunt should have resulted in an inning-ending double play, but an error instead put men on first and third with one out. A force out brought home a run, cutting the lead to 3-1. The Brewers again missed a chance in the fifth, as they failed to do anything with a leadoff double.
The Twins got an insurance run in the seventh, as Gonzalez singled, went to second on a wild pitch, and scored on Ehire Adrianza's pinch-hit double. It was 4-1 and looking good for the visitors. In the bottom of the seventh, however, Hiura led off with a single and scored on a Christian Yelich double. Catcher's interference put men on first and second and Grandal delivered a three-run homer, giving Milwaukee its first lead at 5-4. Suddenly, things weren't looking so good for the visitors after all.
But the Twins would not be denied. Rosario led off the eighth with a double and Sano walked. The next two batters went out, but Gonzalez came through with a three-run homer for the Twins, putting them up 7-5. Dyson and Romo came in to slam the door and make it a Minnesota victory.
WP: Duffey (2-1). LP: Drew Pomeranz (2-10). S: Romo (19).
Notes: It remained Kepler in center and Gonzalez in right, with Byron Buxton remaining out.
Luis Arraez was 1-for-3 with a walk and is batting .350.
Perez got through six innings and gave up just an unearned run. It wasn't pretty, as the Brewers had a threat in pretty much every inning. For the game, Milwaukee stranded twelve runners and went 1-for-12 with men in scoring position. It's hard to tell whether Perez actually pitched better or just got lucky. Whatever it was, though, we'll take it.
It may well be that this is well-known and I just missed it (I went to bed before the ninth), but I don't know why Romo was used to close the game rather than Taylor Rogers. I saw a game story that said Rogers was "apparently unavailable", but it didn't say why. It worked out, but the Twins definitely need a healthy Taylor Rogers coming down the stretch.
This felt like a really big win for the Twins. Yes, momentum is as good as the next day's starting pitcher, and if the Twins go on to lose five of the next six this game won't mean much of anything. But when the Twins lost the lead in the seventh, a lot of people (including me) thought, "Here we go again". Another winnable game lost. Another game blown by the bullpen. Couple that with Cleveland appearing to come back on Boston, and it looked like the Twins would lose yet another game in the standings. Instead, they gained a game and find themselves back in first place. Time will tell how big this game actually was, but it feels pretty big right now.
Record: The Twins are 72-47, first in the American League Central, a half game ahead of Cleveland.
Projected record: We're still on track for 115-47!
