SiouxScore

I know the game was out of hand but hopefully his performance earned a little more trust for him from Rocco. I definitely would have had him coming in before Stashak last night.

Exactly and if he didn't want to have guys throw more than 1 inning then you let Berrios go back out there to start the 5th.

Now Stashak?

With the way he has looked tonight I'd be surprised if he is starting tomorrow with a righty on the mound. Throw Cave in the outfield and move Gonzalez to 1st base.

I would've been fine with that too. My thing is if you are going to your bullpen in that situation you can't go with a guy you're kind of rolling the dice on like Littell. If you wanna roll the dice roll it with Berrios.

Its like Rocco was trying to steal an inning with Littell and it was a terrible time to try that.

I was alright with going to the bullpen to start the 5th but not Littell. I thought it was a sure thing Duffey would start the inning. If the option was Littell or Berrios to start the 5th I would've just seen what Berrios could do coming off his best inning of the night.

Hain

Zimmer and his staff got it handed to them by the Bears in the 1st half. No adjustments at all from the Vikes as the Bears just methodically moved the ball down the field all half. A Bears team missing 2 of their top players overall on the defensive side and their top OL coming into the game is completely dominating. Oh yeah and they lost their starting QB on the first series. This is one the Vikings need to have and it looks like they have no chance.

I don't know what Rocco was thinking there but he is lucky they got out of it with only 1 run. That is the type of thing you test out after your team has clinched the division. Your coming off a day off and you roll with Gibson for 2 innings in a close game and the only guy warming up was Stashak? That just isn't smart at all.

I agree for the most part only decision for me would be do you keep Stashak as the 12th pitcher or Astudillo as another bat off the bench. The other bench guys would be Cave, Castro, Schoop, and Wade I'd think.

Whoever is in charge of the Twins strategy of throwing tons of offspeed to the Royals bottom half of the order this series needs to be fired. The shifting for the bottom half of this order needs to stop too.

Graterol just goes with whatever the catcher puts down and our catchers evidently aren't very smart. Its like they think they should call the game the same way whether it is Graterol on the mound or whether it is Smeltzer. Wade has had some solid at bats but he has really struggled getting jumps on the ball defensively.

Twins evidently still haven't learned not to pull shift when you have a pitcher that throws 100 out there. Graterol is young and wants to respect his catchers but he is gonna have to start shaking them or the coaching staff has to get them to call the right pitches with him on the mound. The Royals bottom half of the order is a bunch of no names and you have a guy that throws 100 on the mound so you call his 2nd best pitch 75% of the time. There is no way those guys were catching up to 100 and you give them a break by calling the 90mph slider.

Yeah why in the world would he use Harper in a game that was close.

Definitely. They have done some absolutely puzzling things to keep teams in games. Fleck took a lot of the blame for yesterdays game being the way it was in the press conference yesterday and deservedly so, some very puzzling coaching decisions and very few adjustments.

Twins coming through with the 8th inning rally. I was just hoping for a sac fly from Miguel but hey a grand slam is much better.

I'd love to see Alcala up was hoping they'd bring him up when they did Graterol. Never a bad thing to have another big arm strikeout guy out in the pen.

I think it was stupid to start but I don't really mind it. Yes the Twins lose a starter who has been pretty good against Cleveland this year, but now instead of facing the Indians top 3 starters the Twins still have to face their top 2 guys but get a Cleveland bullpen that has been up and down in the 2nd half. I think the Twins bullpen has been better than the Indians lately and with the key being for the Twins to get at least 1 win this weekend I like their chances in a bullpen battle.I think the Indians are using Clevinger for game 1 and I'd use two of Dobnak/Thorpe/Smeltzer in the matchup to get through 5 today and if you are leading or tied than you can go to the reliable guys. If you are losing you piece it together and load up with your top arms for the other game. Graterol, Romero, Littell, May, Duffy, Romo, Rogers.

That one combined with the strike 3 call to Cron that wasn't close and Rocco should've lost it. I'd like to see him show some emotion just once. Cruz stepped up on the strike 3 call though and ended up getting tossed evidently.

Twins have to convert on more of these chances. Leave the bases loaded in the 3rd and then can't score a run with nobody out and 2nd and 3rd in the 4th. Have to add on runs when you get the chance or it will come back and bite you later.

Man that was really fun to watch Graterol pitch. Good movement on the fastball to go with the velocity. Gave up a couple hits but extremely weak contact and hit spots pretty well too.

No doubt I'll keep rowing, I'd be disappointed with anything less than 8 wins this year and expect to be in the hunt for a B1G West title.

Why? Fell in love with UND hockey going to a game with a buddy who had a cousin on the team when I was a kid. Born and raised in northwest Minnesota and support my home state in everything else. Been to both UND and Gophers football games in my life too. Gophers and UND really only play at the same level in the one sport so it is easy.

They weren't a very good team Thursday night but I fully believe they will have a very good team this season. OC was hard for prepare for and they definitely struggled with the Jackrabbits offense. Give the guy credit he called a great game. NDSU fan I talked to said he took a lot of the 3 back wrinkles from NDSU and used the misdirection and wheel routes out of that formation like they do and it caused a lot of confusion for the young Gophers LBs. Your friend didn't hit the nail on the head at all. I wasn't fond of the Row the Boat stuff when they hired Fleck but learning more about it it has definitely grown on me. It really is their culture and whether people want to think it is a gimmick or not it I guess that is up to them. It has definitely been a part in helping Fleck and the staff bring in the highest rated recruiting classes in Gopher history the last 2 years. Like I said I think they'll have a really good year and could even win the west with the schedule they have. They obviously can't play like they did Thursday but with how last year ended and the number of starters returning I'm thinking that was more of a slip up and not a indictment on how this team will play this season.