Monday, April 29, 2019

Thoughts from the weekend

The Twins swept the Orioles again this weekend, hitting another 12 homers in the process.

It's no secret that Baltimore has a bad team this year. They were 47-115 last year and might be even worse this season. And I'm not sure they have any genuine foundation pieces on the roster. It's one thing to be bad. It's another to be bad and boring.

Anyway, the Twins are done with the O's. Six games, six wins, see ya next year. Maybe the Birds can find a way to win a game from Cleveland. What we know is that the Twins won't lose this division because they lost a game to Baltimore.

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The Sunday night game between Cleveland and Houston presented an interesting data point on the "third-time-through-the-order" theory. Carlos Carrasco, who might be described at the Cleveland ace if not for the presence in their rotation of Corey Kluber and Trevor Bauer, was sailing along with a one-hitter through six innings.

And then came the third time through. Houston score four runs in the seventh, including a three-run homer from Robinson Chirinos, and the Astros won 4-1.

Terry Francona has typically been quite aggressive about going to his bullpen, but the Cleveland bullpen isn't up to its usual quality this year, and he tried -- hard -- to let Carrasco work his way out of it. It didn't work.

Now the Twins try again to solve the mysteries of beating the Astros. The Indians split four with them over the weekend. The Twins would be happy with that outcome this week, I think.

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Vladimir Guerrero Jr. made his major league debut on Friday with Toronto. Setting aside the debate over the timing of his arrival, this promo ad from MLB -- narrated by his Hall of Famer dad -- touched me.




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