gopherman23

Now tied for the AL homerun lead after his oppo shot in the first inning.

As a Twins fan, I hope the FO looks to move Castro at some point. Garver has definitely improved enough behind the plate where he is not a big liability anymore. He and Astudillo should be getting all the reps at Catcher.

Ha!!! Just hit another one in the second game.

Nice two run opposite field double by Buxton. Shortened up his swing at poked it to right center.

8 homers in the last 11 games. Guy is sorching right now.

So far I like what I see from Bux. Faced really good starting pitching in the first series and only struck out twice. Approach looks much better than the beginning of last year. He doesn't look completely lost against breaking balls, like he has in the past.

Walkoff dinger for Big Bux!!!!

Buxton changed his approach back in June, which has correlated with his increase in production. He no longer uses an exagerated leg kick and he also changed his pre-swing hand placement. Since he made the changes he is only striking out around 23% of the time.

Rooker was Minnesota's competitive balance pick this year. Thought I'd get a thread started on him since he is mashing so far in his young pro career. He was doing so well in rookie ball they just had him skip A ball altogether and put him at A+. So far, between the two levels he has 16 dingers in only 57 games while batting a respectable .278 with a .925 OPS. He is averaging a SO per game, so you would like to see him cut that down a bit going forward, but hard to complain about him so far. He is a guy to keep an eye on, since he could move pretty fast through the Twins system.

Death, Taxes, Second Half Dozier.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned, is that the Twins defense has been really good this year. They probably have the rangiest OF in all of MLB with Rosario, Buxton and Kepler. The left side of the infield with Sano and Polanco, thought to be a weakness going into the season, has been surprisingly good. Dozier has been solid and Mauer has turned himself into a gold glove caliber defender. Overall, the defense has been vastly improved from last year.

Another oppo taco for Sano.

Torii is already employed by the Twins. I believe he is a special assistant to the GM officially. He will be going around to each minor league affiliate and helping out with some instruction. He is also doing 10 or so TV broadcasts. And like you saw with him working with Buxton, Torii will be around to help out with the big club as needed.

According to the broadcast, the decision on who starts on Saturday will likely be made after the game tonight.

Last 12 Games: .333/.441/.472 (.913) 9K, 7BB