From your game thread, it should be game 77.

I saw almost every pitch of this game, Liriano looked very good. I thought the gun that the St. Louis broadcast had was very slow. The fastest pitch I saw from Liriano was 89 and the fastest pitch in the whole game was 91.

I was more than a little distressed by the relief pitching although no one scored. Mijares walked the only guy he faced on four pitches, Guerrier allowed two of four batters he faced to reach and Dickey allowed three of four.

Fortunately, a comebacker double play and a bonehead baserunning move helped the Twins out and kept things under control.

The Twins executed well and got leadoff singles home twice in the late innings to provide a little better cushion.

Hey I know, we got a 3 and a 4 run lead. Let’s use 4 relievers to get 6 outs!

Put someone in in the 8th. Let them pitch the inning with a 3 run lead. Repeat similar for 9th as needed.

He had Nathan up for the 9th with a 3 run lead. Gets him all warmed up (because actually he was up in the 8th too). (Which btw, Gardy never takes into consideration when it comes to overuse when the warmed up reliever fails to enter game). Then we scamp in a run and he rushes Dickey up because Gardy is a slave to stats and he thinks why use Nathan with a 4 run lead even though he’s warmed up. Poor Dickey probably checked out mentally half an hour prior when it looks like no way he’s pitching..

Gardy is certainly not above reproach. And this particular issue goes back to last year, when the bullpen blew 26 saves because Gardy kept running guys like Rincon and Bass out there in key situations and turning wins into losses. When Smith had to DFA those two, Gardy kept running Guerrier out there to get shelled every night.

This year, he has cost us several games by putting guys out there who have no business getting high leverage outs. The most egregious case was Jesse Crain, whom he stuck out there in a tie game in the bottom of the ninth in Chicago and the Twins lost a walk off. Why is this one bad? Because he knew he was going to option Crain to Rochester the next day. If a guy is not good enough to be on your team, he shouldn’t be trying to get outs like that.

But the Crain situation his not the only one. He’s done it with Ayala (gone), Breslow (gone), Humber (gone), Morillo (gone). In the infamous Houston loss, he decided to save Guerrier and Mijares. So he brought in Henn and Ayala instead and those two gave up four runs in a game we ended up losing by one. The next day, he had to use Guerrier and Mijares in a loss to get them more work.

Seriously, Gardy has lost his magic touch with the bullpen. It started last year and it is the biggest problem this team has this year.

…when Span, Harris, Mauer, Morneau and Kubel are our top five hitters and we have a very solid rotation.

The answer is, of course, the bullpen. But we have the best closer in the game and two very good set-up guys. So how do we suck so bad in the bullpen? It comes down to Gardy using guys in the wrong situations.