Twins (Ryan) vs Red Sox (Bello): 5/2/25, 7:10pm

[Tedballgame]

5 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Little did he know steroids would revive Clemens' career.

He was able to dominate all of the batters who were using steroids during that era.

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, vegasbob said:

Giddy Up, Moon. Ride that horse as far as he can carry you !

Roll 'em, roll 'em, roll 'em.

Through the streams are swollen

Keep them doggies rollin'

RAWHIDE!

 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

The Twins have good starting pitching. Nothing else.

[FredLynn]

Who said Hamilton sucks?

[Jasonbay44]

David Hamilton is having an awesome game tonight 

[vegasbob]

Oh you Hamilton haters !  Shame, and Romy too.     

They are not great players but necessary pieces and contribute from time to time.  Good for them.

[FredLynn]

I don’t think the Sox can blow this one 

[FredLynn]

Out

[FredLynn]

Finally 

[moonslav59]

33 minutes ago, Nick said:

Devers at 1B. Bring up Anthony. Rotate guys through DH.

They shoulda handed him a 1Bman's mitt in ST'ing (or years ago, as I suggested often.)

Romy hits lefties, very well, so he's fine at 1B v LHPs. I'm not sure Grissom is the guy we want at 1B vs RHPs, but we will probably try it.

There doesn't seem to be anyone else that looks like a 1Bman to make room for Anthony and or Mayer.

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, Nick said:

Devers at 1B. Bring up Anthony. Rotate guys through DH.

 

1 hour ago, Nick said:

Devers at 1B. Bring up Anthony. Rotate guys through DH.

That’s the logical move but I don’t think it’s the smart move. Devers was told he’s being replaced at 3B and is now the DH. I don’t think it’s fair to now tell him “oh btw, we now need you at 1B”.  
He would rightfully be pissed.

[moonslav59]

I think Grandal has played some 1B.

[Duran Is The Man]

1 hour ago, FredLynn said:

 

That’s the logical move but I don’t think it’s the smart move. Devers was told he’s being replaced at 3B and is now the DH. I don’t think it’s fair to now tell him “oh btw, we now need you at 1B”.  
He would rightfully be pissed.

i don't think he has any right to be pissed at all. nothing says selfish POS like 'i'm gonna take my ball and go home if i can't play the position i want'. if you're a team player, you'll do whatever is asked.

[moonslav59]

I'd sit him down and ask what he thinks about it. If he seems hesitant or worse, I'd try to ask if he'd give it a try in practice and see how he likes it. Remind him that he wanted to play in the field and not DH, and maybe this might be better.

If he still says no, I'm in the school of telling him he needs to pick up a glove and do what's right for the team.

This is a way to get Anthony playing near FT (or Mayer.)

[Randy Red Sox]

17 hours ago, Nick said:

Nah, we outscored Toronto 18-13 but lost 2 out of 3. 

We failed numerous time to stretch the 6-0 lead and lost 6-7.

We thought early 2-0 was enough offense, again failed to score and lost 2-0.

Our offense can be improved by simply calling up Anthony. Their manager said HE HAS NOTHING TO GAIN FROM PLAYING AAA.

and who does he replace?

[Randy Red Sox]

11 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I think Grandal has played some 1B.

he hasn't even caught yet and with Wong back is there really any room for him??

[Randy Red Sox]

9 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I'd sit him down and ask what he thinks about it. If he seems hesitant or worse, I'd try to ask if he'd give it a try in practice and see how he likes it. Remind him that he wanted to play in the field and not DH, and maybe this might be better.

If he still says no, I'm in the school of telling him he needs to pick up a glove and do what's right for the team.

This is a way to get Anthony playing near FT (or Mayer.)

Problem is that if Devers goes to 1B {which i like} then Yoshida would like become the DH. I think we all want Anthony up in Boston.

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

14 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Yes, losing Burnes was bad, but they also lost Santander.

I wasn't buying the Yankee Soto replacement talk. They also lost Torres. The Dugo/Rizzo losses were additions by subtractions, but I did not have much faith in Goldschmidt. Rice has been surprising and a bit unexpected.

I expected us to finish ahead of TOR and TBR and be close to NYY.

I thought we could pass HOU & BAL, but the O's have so much young talent nearing prime. (I think we do, too.)

DET & KCR are hard to predict.

Basically, no AL team jumps out as dominating, so that is why my hopes were up, this season- more than out of what I saw was an improved roster on paper, over the '24 Sox team.

We lost O'Neal, but we are already talking about a logjam in the OF blocking Anthony.

We lost Pivetta, a guy no MLB rushed to sign. We added Crochet, Buehler and essentially Gio.

We lost McGuire/Jansen and added Narvaez.

The biggest losses were K Jansen and a not as great in '24 Martin, but added only Chapman and essentially Hendriks. I saw this as our weak link and the only area we got worse, on paper, but with so much pitching depth, perhaps only mediocre, I felt we might cobble together 8 arms (some starters) to form an okay pen.

Better O

Better D

Better rotation and starter depth

Worse pen.

Plaus teams that were ahead of us in '24, mostly getting worse or breaking even- on paper.

I thought the additions of Bellinger, Goldschmidt and a full year of Jazz would somewhat offset the loss of soto and make the lineup deeper.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

and who does he replace?

Replacing Rafaela should greatly improve the offense, but the D would suffer some.

If somehow we get Devers at 1B, we'd have the DH role for people to share and allow Anthony enough ABs to be worth the call-up.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

Problem is that if Devers goes to 1B {which i like} then Yoshida would like become the DH. I think we all want Anthony up in Boston.

It doesn't have to  be that way, and Yoshida isn't even facing gametime pitching, now.

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

I thought the additions of Bellinger, Goldschmidt and a full year of Jazz would somewhat offset the loss of soto and make the lineup deeper.

They also lost Torres. He's been their third best hitter over the past 2-3 years, so they lost #2 and #3. Other players like Stanton & LeMahieu were already in decline before 2025.

Getting D Williams and Fried looked real good, but the Lost Cole, Cortes and Holmes, among others.

They did not get better, on paper, IMO. If anything, I'd say worse, overall.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

he hasn't even caught yet and with Wong back is there really any room for him??

Umm, I mentioned 1B. You want Wong at 1B?

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

On 5/3/2025 at 1:20 PM, moonslav59 said:

They also lost Torres. He's been their third best hitter over the past 2-3 years, so they lost #2 and #3. Other players like Stanton & LeMahieu were already in decline before 2025.

Getting D Williams and Fried looked real good, but the Lost Cole, Cortes and Holmes, among others.

They did not get better, on paper, IMO. If anything, I'd say worse, overall.

I thought that another year of improvement from some of the young guys would offset gleyber, who was also a terrible defender. I wasn't too upset with the loss of holmes considering that we obtained Williams (not that that worked out so far). 

[moonslav59]

10 minutes ago, TheSplinteredSplendor said:

I thought that another year of improvement from some of the young guys would offset gleyber, who was also a terrible defender. I wasn't too upset with the loss of holmes considering that we obtained Williams (not that that worked out so far). 

I liked Williams more, too, but the upgrade was not enough to offset the other losses.

Getting Fried was great. I had advocated us signing him, a lot, but he is not enough to offset losing Cole and Cortes.

Bellinger is not close to Soto.

Yes, the Yanks have some younger guys with expectations of growth and improvement, but we have more, so I did not see that as a gain over the Sox.

I honestly felt, the Yanks got worse over the winter. They were maybe even before the Cole injury news broke, IMO.

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

1 minute ago, moonslav59 said:

I liked Williams more, too, but the upgrade was not enough to offset the other losses.

Getting Fried was great. I had advocated us signing him, a lot, but he is not enough to offset losing Cole and Cortes.

Bellinger is not close to Soto.

Yes, the Yanks have some younger guys with expectations of growth and improvement, but we have more, so I did not see that as a gain over the Sox.

I honestly felt, the Yanks got worse over the winter. They were maybe even before the Cole injury news broke, IMO.

I don't think anyone thought that Bellinger is close to Soto. But as I stated earlier, I thought the additions of him and Goldschmidt and some expected improvement from guys like Wells and Dominguez would offset the loss of soto.

Before the injury to Cole, I envisioned something similar to the 2001 Diamondbacks, where facing Johnson and curt in a short series gave them a pretty good advantage. Cole and Fried could dominate a short series as well.

Even with the injuries, I still think they're the best team in the division, especially if Gil comes back effective and Williams gets back on track.