Well, on an infield single by Roberto Perez, then a walk, we bled home 2 runs in the 8th to go up 3-1.

Thank goodness for Bieber to keep me awake earlier on. Nice outing but ran up his pitch count - AJ Cole has been a nice pickup for the bullpen.

Got things well in "Hand" now.

If the bullpen were what we had last year, we'd be below 500.

Who would have guessed that would be a strength!? Cheap can work out there.

Yeah, it's been stated what a crapshoot a bullpen can be and we DO see that in Cleveland.

A bullpen with Andrew Miller and Cody last year......sucked. This year with them gone....good!

Brad Hand has been perfect - with even a couple blown saves (which would have been normal) we are in even deeper shit.

As I stated in the General, Twins have the best record in the AL, actually in ALL of baseball. Go figure, an AL Central team has the best record in baseball.

When the brass was "cutting it close" they weren't figuring on that!

and meanwhile the top quality solid reliable starting pitching has been not so solid [2 on the DL] or reliable [Kluber, Bauer, Carrasco all pitching well below expectations]

For sure, really Bieber has been our top story this season!

Mercado back in today.

and the cleanup hitter is: Jason Kipnis! That's where you put the big power guy and Jason has indeed homered one day this season. Makes sense.

After one batter today, Bauer had exceeded his 2018 home run total. Rays are doing the opener thing today. Although the opener went deep into the game today, 1 2/3 innings. He surrendered a pair of first inning singles, including by the cleanup hitter, but then retired the league's worst hitter, approximately, to end the rally.

So while our cleanup hitter doesn't hit homers, our 5th hitter [Jose the Former} doesn't bat in runs [15 to date].

We really do put a lineup out there that's tough to match up with. How do you choose which of your pitchers to face which of our non-hitting hitters?

through 2 Bauer hadn't walked anyone, but he starts the 3rd hitting the 9th hitter, then top of the order singles, and then on a 3-1 count the next hits one to Mercado in left which at the moment is "official scorer ruling awaited" which results in run scoring, men on second and third and none out.

Back into a 2 run early hole they're incapable of digging out of. Good night.

Make that a 4 run hole.

Lucky Bauer went to video and (expertly) figured out the problem eh???

So when 4 of your 5 SPs are either injured or sucking and that was the strong point of your team....

Kipnis batting .221 with no power whatsoever batting cleanup....

And we are supposed to believe this wasn't intended to be a rebuild season? I suppose they thought that if things went well they might get by in the Central, and in the past that was true. But with little margin, things are bleak.

So fine, we get it, just go ahead and see which kids can play then. Send in Bradley, Karinchak, Plesac, keep Mercado in etc etc etc

And hope Jose Ramirez figures it out at some point this season so he is of use next season.

Karinchak not availabl;e still on the Clipper IL with a hamstring pull. You didn't ask for Chang and that's good since he's also hurt and was hitting about 170 when he did play. Nick Sandlin has been doing just great in the Akron bullpen; I'd rush him to Columbus first, but it certainly didn't take Plesac long to take the next step [same as Bieber last year, although not sure Zach is quite the talent of Shane] Kyle Nelson lefty reliever hasn't allowed a run yet and has a WHIP of just over 0.5 first with Lynchburg and then with Akron. And after his first game in Columbus has a 1.350 OPS and he's ready for the next level ---- well, not quite yet.

Bobby Bradley hit his 12th home run a little bit ago for Columbus.

Well they rallied part way back. That's something.

Well, we weren't the only team fleeced by the Rays. As John Hart said recently, "When Tampa Bay calls, don't take the call, you are busy".

Pittsburgh gave up Tyler Glasnow AND Austin Meadows for Chris Archer and they are also kicking themselves, but worse than us:

AUSTIN MEADOWS
OF, TAMPA BAY RAYS

Austin Meadows went 4-for-4 with a home run, three RBI and two runs scored to lead the Rays to a 6-3 win over the Indians on Sunday.

Meadows batted leadoff and certainly played catalyst all afternoon, including socking a leadoff homer against Indians starter Trevor Bauer. He singled and scored in a two-run third inning, was hit by a pitch and stole a base in the fifth, collected an RBI single in the seventh and capped it off with an RBI ground-rule double in the ninth.

If there's anything the 24-year-old can't do, we're still waiting to see it -- through Sunday, he's now got 10 homers, five steals, 27 RBI and 19 runs scored while batting a healthy .341/.420/.659 across 34 games played.

We can hope Mercado from the Cardinals ends up similarly for us.