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Derek Falvey, chief baseball officer of the Twins, did not add a quality starting pitcher to his club ranked first at the Major League trade deadline on July 31.
Falvey's inability to acquire a guy like Marcus Stroman or Madison Bumgarner was seen as a missed opportunity to improve a team with a lineup that was set to set the home run record for a season. The theory was that a beginner could have placed himself above or below Jose Berrios and hit all the others on a notch, creating a staff that would have had to be respected during the playoffs.
Almost a month later, Falvey seems to have made the right choice by not giving up an excellent pitcher prospect, but that's not because his team of beginners did his job.
On the contrary.
The rotation of the Twins fell into such a free fall that Stroman or Bumgarner, who had not been moved by the San Francisco Giants, were probably looking around and saying, "Why did you disturb yourself? ?
Berrios allowed nine points in 5.2 innings in Atlanta on Aug. 6 – a start after not scoring and only two hits in seven innings in Miami – and public panic was reassured. Berrios is allowed to take a bad start here and there. He's the Twins ace and he's about to become a major league ace, so calm down. Yes, it came from me. A guy nicknamed "Panic" a long time ago by his colleague Patrick Reusse.
Guess what? I was wrong. Not only has Berrios not rebounded after this bad start, but he has entered such a crisis that the Twins office has to wonder if the team wants to approach the Berrios camp with a long-term contract offer designed to lock up some of his "main" years.
The last Berrios flop came Friday night at Target Field in a 9-6 loss to the terrible Detroit Tigers. Berrios did not look well in advance but avoided giving points to a team that struggled to score and had a 3-0 lead early in the sixth. It all collapsed when the right handed two-point double to Dawel Lugo and later a grand slam to Ronny Rodriguez on a broken ground that he hung.
It's one thing to be bombarded by the Braves, but it's another to be hit by a Tigers team that is last in the big leagues with 461 points. Berrios is now 0-2 in four starts in August with a 8.44 ERA, after scoring 32 hits, 24 points, 20 earned runs, 10 goals scored and six homers at home.
The problem is that there is no one to pick up the pieces. Do you trust Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, Martin Perez or Michael Pineda?
The Twins could have won two of three games against the White Sox this week, apart from the fact that Gibson gave Jose Abreu a juicy pitch in the third round Monday, which earned him 44 feet for a three-run homer in six. -4 loss. This came with Jon Jay hitting in the cleaning spot and due next. Jay entered Monday with no points in the season and yet, with the first goal open and two outs, Gibson chose to become cute with Abreu.
Since the trade deadline, Odorizzi is the best pitcher of the Twins. He conceded a 1-1 record with a 2.82 ERA in four starts after conceding seven earned runs in 22.1 innings. On his last start, Odorizzi played five innings against the White Sox, scoring 104 shots in five sets in a 4-0 loss.
Pineda, who had been on the injured list, has made three starts since the deadline and is 2-0 with a time of 4.00 (eight points earned in 18 innings). Gibson is 1-2 with a 5.96 ERA (15 earned runs in 22 innings) in four starts and Perez is 0-1 with a 5.73 ERA (14 earned runs in 22 innings) in four starts .
So, do you start Odorizzi in the first game of the series and do you hope for the best? Do you pray that Berrios' struggles end in time for him to return to the summit? Is Pineda your best bet? The Twins hold a 2.5-game lead over Cleveland in Central AL after the Indians beat Kansas City 4-1 on Friday night. The Indians were about to be swept by the Mets and, with Cleveland playing in Kansas City and the Twins playing in Detroit, it had to be assumed that Cleveland and Minnesota would win it.
Only one team held the end of the negotiation and it was not the Twins. The Twins scored six points and hit four other homers at home. That should have been enough to beat the Tigers.
If the Twins can not win a series against the White Sox or beat the Tigers with the guy who is supposed to be their best pitcher (Detroit has 37 games behind the Twins and has 39 wins!), How's Rocco's club Baldelli? to win a playoff series?
With this starting staff, they are not. The additions to the negotiations deadline – Sergio Romo and Sam Dyson – could be improvements, but that's okay. The season has a season that will certainly not be repeated anytime soon, but it does not matter. And adding a starting launcher (no matter how good) would not have mattered either.
The rest of the staff, starting with Berrios, seem unable to provide the type of quality that this team desperately needs. It's disappointing, but the reality that fans of the Twins have to accept is that any potential playoff appearance is bound to be brief.
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