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MINNEAPOLIS – The Twins still won a match to extend their division lead to 6.5 games with 20 games to play. Jake Odorizzi, who dialed the phone, still has a nice exit. They still saw two Bombas sailing over the barrier of Mitch Garver's mighty bat.
They are again is about to win 100 games, still holds the all-time MLB record for most seasoned strokes, and still fills Target Field Saturday night with nearly 40,000 paid entries.
And yet, despite all these silver liners, we will remember Saturday at Target Field for the cloud.
Michael Pineda has been suspended 60 times for violating MLB's drug program. He took a prohibited substance, a diuretic, and after an appeal, his sentence was reduced. But the amazing truth for the Twins is that his season is over. He will not play in the playoffs.
The Twins were struggling to compete with the American League with a starting rotation that had problems in the second half. Pineda was the best of the group recently, averaging 2.76 in his last 11 outings. Rocco Baldelli called it "Old Reliable" on Friday, which turned out to be Big Mike's last outing for the 2019 season, and maybe even for his career in the Twins.
So, what's next for the twins? How do you collect the elements of a magical season when an already fragile member of the club gets a hard blow?
In summary, the other players will have to do their job and, as a group, hope this will be enough. Of course, many launchers that were not part of the projects in February will have to meet unfair expectations. These are the big leagues.
José Berríos and the Twins will have to get back on track and see a return to the best version of the young starter Twins. I've laid out my plan for the best way to do that, and it's based on giving him six days off between starts.
This theory will be tested now that Pineda is eliminated from the photo and that Kyle Gibson is on the list of injured in the treatment of ulcerative colitis. The Twins, however, have 18 throwers on the list and I realize in my opinion that the time has come to give Berríos the free time between two outings.
Jake Odorizzi will have a lot on his shoulders this month and the next too. He is now probably the second-largest pitcher of the rotation and, as an experienced parent, will be asked to be part of the crew that helps stabilize the ship after Saturday's wave.
Since Odorizzi had the upper hand in the eyes of the Yankees at the end of July, the right-hander in his free year has been solid for the Twins. He earned a points medal of 3.00 for those 7 starts, an average of 5 1/2 innings in this sequence. He eliminated 26% of the batters during this period, and his deductive reasoning allowed him to start in the first or second match of the American League series, as things stand.
Byron Buxton"The return could remove the EER from the rotation. You look in the Twins canoe on a given night and you will probably see a lot of difference makers with the bat; you will not see any difference maker as a healthy and productive Buxton. So we will continue to wait patiently as this shoulder gets stronger and maybe someday it will allow the star center player to become more than a submarine at the end of the round.
That was the first three guys in my mind when I was asked how Pineda's Twins "filled the shoes". Nobody fills the shoes – I mean, seriously, these were huge boots. The twins will not be able to replace one for one what Pineda gave them. This is doubly true in October. They will have to get different types of contributions from other places and enough pitching to help bridge the gap.
The pitching plan:
Randy Dobnak Sunday's game for the Twins will begin in the final of the series with the Indians. At least he will be the first pitcher to face a hitter on Sunday. Beyond that, we are not sure. He was used as an opener last week against the Red Sox. Lewis Thorpe is the one who launched a bigger part of this match.
They are pitchers like Thorpe, Devin Smeltzer and Zack Littell this could be asked to impregnate more sleeves. And Cody Stashak had an impressive year in the minor leagues, so maybe he should be on that radar. Would you dare to play with the reasonably good thing you have in the office now? Make Trevor May or Tyler Duffey more than one multi-sleeve guy to help fill in the gaps?
Kyle Gibson could come back at some point and help ease the pressure, but some would say that this is not the most pressing thing in his to-do list at the moment. Anyway, the rest of the regular season will require some creativity. It's doubly true if the Twins agree with me and want to try to find extra days for Berríos without the luxury of many team days.
Under this plan, the Twins should perform about 5 outings without their Big 4 of their opening day rotation. I'm curious to see how the Twins will replace Pineda in September. But I am fascinated to see how they try to do it in October.
Zulgad: The suspension of Michael Pineda means that Jose Berrios must recover his form All-Star
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