Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
I love michelas Man. I nevertire of having him on because he's so
He's funny, he's direct, he'sgot that little rye sense of humor where
it comes out of nowhere. Youknow, he's so good. And if
you're a Wolves fan, remember he'sbased now back in the Dallas Fort Worth
(00:27):
market, so he's around the Mavericksa lot. And he's picking the Wolves,
he said, not in a sweep, but in a decently long series.
Double t for the record, hasTimberwolves in six in this series.
And I know the more people pickthe Wolves, the more nervous you're gonna
get. And I get that toa certain extent, and that many fans
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are because you just start worrying aboutwell, guy, you know, too
many people are kicking in on thisthing, and then it doesn't take much
to fall behind in Game one,right, and then something snowball and before
you know it, all is lost. But more people, I put it
this way, Minnesota sports fans,especially if this ride continues, are going
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to have to get used to alot of praise on this team. Yeah,
that's the reality of it. Andthat gets back to the gravy game.
So, by the way, forthe record Corey provis Or thirty this
evening, bottom of this hour,and he lays out several of the Twins
controversies in great depth with us betweenfour thirty and five, and then Louis
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will be in studio in the fiveo'clock hour as well. We'll talk plenty
of hockey and other things with him. The gravy game is Mitch kind of
alluded to it. So teams thatI don't want to say come out of
nowhere, because the Wolves were thenumber one seed most of this season,
but teams that don't have a lotof you know, playoff success, playoff
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history, equity, and their beastpocket when they emerge to the degree that
the Wolves have already emerged, whichis to get to the NBA's Final Four.
One of the cliches sports questions isis it all gravy from here?
In other words, already they've achieveda lot more than a lot of people
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thought they could more. You couldargue on the basis of a lack of
playoff success anybody should have expected ofthem. Has it reached the point now
where whatever the Wolves do from thispoint forward, whether it's win is expected
or lose, get eliminated and don'tmake it to the NBA Finals, That
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it's all gravy. They've already statedtheir case that they are here to stay.
That even if it ends in disappointingfashion in this round or in the
NBA Finals where they will still beunderdogs of the Boston Celtics if Boston gets
there, that it doesn't matter.It's gravy. They've already cooked the main
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course brilliantly, and whatever else theyget at this point, it's a nice
little bonus. So do you buythat notion that this is the gravy period
of the Minnesota Timberwolves run if theydo nothing else. Now, I'm gonna
say, short of getting swept,let's just say this series goes six or
seven and they lose it. Doyou say I didn't love it? Is
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disappointing, I didn't like this happened. That happened, But this is all
gravy. They'd already achieved a certainstatus that is worthy of praise, and
we just go on from here.We take this as next year, you
try to take the next step,and so on and so on. I
think I would be more willing totalk gravy had they lost game seven in
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Denver. Now that they have knockedoff the champs, now you're greedy and
they have home court advantage. Nowit's the finals. Would be the gravy
if they lose in this round toDallas, who's obviously good, I would
say, it's it's gravy that's beensitting there for like four or five days.
It's not it's not good gravy.I'm not in the gravy phase right
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now. I might be closer tothe it's interesting to the gravy phase than
you. I want the finals now, but it's not like I'm gonna be
devastating. Well, I'll be devastating. Here's where it gets tricky. As
you said, you can't help butpay attention to the reality, which is
we have home court, we're higherseated yep than Dallas yep. So yeah,
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I know I should be in thegravy period. But man, now
that we knocked off the defending champsand changed everything to the point where they're
out of the way because we knockedthem out, there's nobody in our path
and at least you know, obviouslyleft in the Western Conference that you say,
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well, that's not a team thatthey should beat. It's funny how
it can switch. Yeah. Partof the inspiration for this conversation was your
guy Greene. He had a charttoday on ESPN on his morning show,
The TV Show, in which heranked in his mind right now the teams
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who can be called unqualified successes onthe basis of what's already taken already taken
place, and he picked five teams. He had the Timberwolves no higher than
number four. The panel destroyed him. They said, that's ridiculously low when
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you factor in several things about whatthe Wolves have already done. So and
that's kind of connected to the gravydiscussion because this doesn't take into account anything
that might happen after this. It'sup until now. Now. What Greene's
comeback was, well, if theythe Wolves win the title, then obviously
as an unqualified success, they're goingto go from four to one automatically.
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They if they reached the finals,they might go from four to two,
and one might have to be theBoston Celtics, even though the Celtics are
in this no win position that they'reobligated one of these years to win the
thing because they've come as close asthey have. But again, and this
goes back to what we were talkingabout yesterday about moving the goalposts. For
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me, right now, if youwere if let's just say there were no
more playoffs that this for whatever reason, there was another COVID scare and it
was over. We just have tosuspend operations now. I believe the Minnesota
Timberwolves go to number one as literallythe greatest success in two thousand and twenty
four to twenty five. I meanagain, we talked about this earlier a
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year ago. They're punching each otherand punching walls, right they Yeah,
they played Denver reasonably tough, butthey lost the series in five games.
They're out in the first round.They had the number one seed almost this
entire season. They have the bestdefense in the league. They've developed it
both eye tests and analytically, bya long shot, analytically over any other
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defense. They swept the team inthe first round that most people said was
a nightmare matchup for them. Theybeat the defending champions in seven games and
had to win game seven in Denver, had to win the last two games
of the series, did it,destroying the defending champions in game six here
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in historic fashion, and then comingback from twenty points down again in historic
fashion to win Game seven. They'vealready won five road games in just two
series. Their head coach is intheir second row having to get up on
crutches to say, hey, Mikecalled time out there. So there's a
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part of me that says, maybeI'm too Polydanna here. I'm saying,
on the basis of all those things, this is a successful season, a
wildly successful season for the Wolves.If they don't move any further. I
get the tricky part. Their ownsuccess has I think, almost forced you
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to want to get a little greedierbecause then you say, well, there's
not the other team you're playing isn'tpedigreed now. The Mavericks got to the
conference finals two years ago. KyrieIrving is an accomplished playoff performer, right,
no question. Luca is an accomplishedplayoff performer. Streaky, but he's
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been there. He was with theteam that got to the conference finals two
years ago. But I get howit feels like, well, no,
now the doors open in a waythat it rarely is for a team that
has had so little playoff success intheir history as the Wolves had. Usually,
you do have to take two orthree steps. But my god,
you're right there now, and there'snobody in front of you that you look
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at as this, this this storiedfranchise that man to beat them, they've
already beaten that team on the teamthat's closest to that, right, the
defending champions as well. It's it'snot like when the Wolves, you know,
four lost to the Lakers, eventhough it was a water down version
of the Lakers that ended up losingin the finals. Like it was the
Lakers, it was Shack, itwas Kobe right like it was disappointing,
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but you felt like, man,it was you didn't have You didn't have
have Sam Cassell I could argue yourmost important player, certainly backward player.
If people want to get in onit, good opportunity to hit the talk
back at the play some when wecome back microphone eye kind of the iHeartRadio
app. You got thirty seconds?Are we in the gravy phase of Minnesota
Timberwolves basketball for twenty twenty four?The fanombig, deck dot com' ANDNA give
you a shot to put a grandin your ham with our national cast contest.
(09:58):
You can enter the keyword fun atkfan dot com. That's your shot
at winning kfan dot com. Andthe keyword is fun. Yeah. I
can't say we're in the gravy phaseonly because of what's in front of you.
The opportunity here is very fleeting.This is the year you gotta do
it. As much as we haven'teven been close for so long, this
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is the year you gotta do itbecause we're right there. We're knocking on
the door. That is from whathave you done for me lately? Guy?
Thank you? Hey Dann bretton Rochesterchecking in a game with you here.
I don't think we're really in agravy phase. I think we're in
a phase where we need to almosthave an expectation that we win. I
think this team has proven that theycan and that they will. I think
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this team has made it clear thattheir expectation is that they do win as
well. So I'm going to holdmyself to the same standard they do.
I don't think this is gravy.This is a championship level team and we're
going to go after it. Hey, it's time from Stillwater. First of
all, I just want to saysix assful season by any standard, it's
amazing to be able to say thatabout a team in this state. No
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matter what happens from here forward,this has been great. The second thing
I want to say, if welose in this round, I'm going to
be so disappointed, and everybody inthe state should be disappointed, because this
is an amazing opportunity. Hopefully theydo more with this opportunity than the Gopher
football team did with their chance inthe West. Micht no gravy here,
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boys, I want the meat potatoes. We've earned every bit of this and
that's an organization. As the teamand for the fans, I want it
all getting strayed. How unusual isit for the host of the show,
the snarky a hole in the afternoon, to be the guy who's saying,
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calm down. This has been asmashing success already, and the audience and
even you are the ones saying,damn it, no, this isn't nearly
enough. Opportunity is here, nowtake it now. I would I can
actually listen to that argument because thatcliche about you never know if it's gonna
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be exactly the tea leaves are gonnabe, you're gonna be able to read
them the same way, or it'sgonna play out the same way. Yeah
again, I get that part,the idea that just because it's rare for
a team to ascend as quickly asthese guys have, that you should just
say I'll call up, slow down, don't worry that, you know,
guess what, make your own history. Forget what has been the past,
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take full advantage of the opportunity.I like that aggressiveness. I won't argue
with it, but I can honestlytell you I think fans, if they
mean what they're saying, are moredemanding than the snarky host of the show
feels at this particular point. It'swhat this team has done to them.
This team has got them to thinkingabout an NBA championship or certainly a finals
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berth. I'm not you know me, I'm not championship or bus right,
But when you've got home court,and you've got a team that I know
wasn't the same team that they arenow after the trade deadline, but a
team that was flirting, you know, essentially in the playing spot for much
of the season, and you werethe best team in the West for much
of the season until the final weekor so, when you ended up with
the third seed. It's hard notto think. I mean, I get
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that. For me, it wouldhave been better if they lost Game seven.
You know, what are you gonnado? Yeah, right, chance,
Yeah, you knew they were goingto have it in them. But
what they did, how they didus like you guys are all penalizing them
for doing what they weren't expected todo and knocking on the defending champions in
Denver. I know. And nowthey've gone, well, they've gone to
a different level of Wow. Thisis when you're one of four teams left,
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you do start really thinking about it. And it is interesting that we
are scared now of what people aresaying about the team when all we've asked
for twenty years is attention exactly weYou never talk about us, US.
You never talk about us. Youknow, you beat Denver in the regular
season and you're opening up with theDallas Cowboys or you never you don't even
watch our games. All you wantto do is rip Rudy. And now
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everybody's watching and going, you knowwhat this team might win. I think
this is the favorite in the West, and maybe even in the favorite in
the finals, and people, Ithink I'm not as scared about it anymore.
It's unbelievable. It's crazy that we'rehaving these conversations that we're going to
be talking about the Wolves and notthe lottery and what's going on in Summer
League into June. It's crazy.So I think part of it for me
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will be it's it's answering the unanswerable. The devil will be in the details
how the games go, how thegames go exactly. You know, are
you up three games to one andyou lose the series, you get swept,
you have a couple of games whereyou know, you unravel in the
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fourth quarter. I you know,I think, at least for me,
those things are really important. It'show if they did lose, how did
they lose? No question. IfLuca, who is capable of this,
has a game where he scores,you know, fifty six and just is
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guarded as closely as anybody could guardhim and still goes off, I'm not
sure I'm gonna be ready to callfor anybody's head or to say, oh
my god, what a what ahorrible disappointment. It's almost it's almost like
people have forgotten too quickly how farthis franchise has come with this particular run,
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because Again, for me, it'snot just I mean, you can
say, well, guess what,look the media, there's four teams every
year this time of year. It'snot you know, there's no banners for
that. And to a certain extent, that's true. They're only halfway right.
They got to win sixteen games,they only want to eight. Correct,
all these teams that are in it, they've only gone halfway. It's
a it is a marathon, nota sprint. As Rudy's said, he
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has more room in his stomach.But that's see. Yes, But that's
also part of my point is it'sreally hard and things intrude that work against
you, maybe an injury here ora call there, or a real hot
player on the other end of it. That's why for me it's hard to
say, man, you don't Ifyou don't close the deal against the Mavericks,
I might be done with this club, which I think is a bridge
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too far. And I'm the guy, you know, I'm the snarky guy.
But again, it'll play to acertain extent, it will take care
of itself, probably on the basisof the way it plays out and how
they perform and how much you lookat that whatever happens in this series,
as was more about the old youknow, the the the the cliche we
talk about did the Timberwalls win itor the Monarcks lose it? You know
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that kind of thing. Which ofthose two things was it? If that's
the way it goes, how muchdo you put on one team? The
winning team just they were just toogood. They just made every play and
they they've earned it. And evenif you're the losing team, he say,
well, I gotta tip my capsto them. They were extremely good.
But it does say a lot aboutthe run itself, how effective and
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tremendous it's been that the the theswitch has been flipped to a place where
it's like, damn right, theybetter get to the NBA finals. Yeah,
what are you talking about here?Of course one guy didn't. The
one guy who says gonna be poed, Well, we'll see how that
goes. And I think even thathe might temper depending on how this thing
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plays out. I think they're gonnawin the series. I do. Why
will be more surprised if they don'tthan if they do, because I do
think, as Mitch said, Idon't know that they have anybody who can
I think there's a decent chance AnthonyEdwards is going to be more consistent offensive
force in this series than he wasin the Denver series. And remember he
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was not a great offensive force inevery game in the series' right, And
I think, look, Kyrie isa great shot maker. Man, he's
awfully good. But I think thatfor me, the most interesting part about
this series might be Anthony Edwards guardingKyrie and if that works. The one
concern you always have is foul trouble, right, That's always That's a lot
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of the reason why teams often don'tput their best scorer on the other team's
best score if possible. Right,It's not that they don't think they're capable.
It's oh god, two quick fileseven minus into the game, and
now we got to change everything thatwe do. Yep so, And my
guess is he won't play them thewhole game either. That's the beauty of
the Wolves defense, in the versatilityof the wing defenders is they'll they'll they'll
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move people, several people around onthem. I did like how they just
put Ant on Murray in the secondhalf and basically said go get them,
and even the last possession of thegame. Yes, when it was over.
I mean it should have been overa long time before. But you
know, Ant was waving and thenJayden tried to spike it and dunk it
and that's end of the game becauseDenver was really willing to just lay down.
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Well, here's the most important point. I don't I don't think there's
any reason to believe that the Wolvesthemselves are saying gravy, we got the
you know, we did what weneeded to do, and well, no
sweat, not even close. That'sthe beauty of it. I think they
are well aware of, man,we might not have to wait any longer.
We might not have to wait anotherseason the way Denver had to wait
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like three. It might be herefor us right now. So I don't
think they have the gravy complex.I think it's an interesting, uh talking
point. And as I said,I think Greenberg for now had the Wolves
way too low on the base.They, mister Dems, have been easily,
in my view, the most impressiveplayoff team at this point. I
don't think it's close, right,I mean, based on who they've played,
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the circumstances, et cetera, theinjury, you know, I mean
again, the Pacers have It's nottheir fault, but they've they've they've played
two wounded teams. The celt havebeen utterly unspectacular in losing games at home.
Right, that made no sense extendingseries beyond how they should have even
been extended. And the Mavericks havebeen good, I think. But the
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Clippers were injury ravaged, right,I mean they basically their best player,
Kawhi wasn't available for most of it, and and Oklahoma City is good,
but they've got some limitations as aswell. All right, let's do this.
This will be the bottom of thehour pause we have. I had
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one other thing I wanted to getinto. Maybe it was via text.
Where did it go? I can't. I can't find it. But there's
something something about the Jimmy J.Johnson news conference that's stuck in my head.
I'll save it and try to rememberit later. We are going to
talk baseball next segment with Corey Proviswho joins US Weekly. And the contrast
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is interesting, right, the Wolves, everybody's happy, Everybody loves one another,
they're on the path, they feelgood about their situation, they feel
good about each other. Meanwhile,the Twins are bickering. Right, you've
got a relief pitcher, your closerwho's basically saying, don't blame me for
throwing a hanging breaking ball. Iwas ordered to do it publicly. And
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then you got Rocco publicly lambasting theclub on the basis of another undisciplined offensive
performance in which apparently we refuse toadjust because we love to hit fastball so
much, we refuse to adjust thefact that the guy pitching yesterday was just
not going to give us the pitchthat we wanted. All of that will
be discussed with Corey provis as theTwins try to break a seven game losing
(21:37):
street That's find our Mall of America'sStreet team all summer long at all of
our events. You can confine them, ask about their Mall of America mystery
cards where everyone is a winner.Check out where the street team will be
next to Cafe dot Com. Theword calendar. I know what it was.
It come back to me part ofthe cell bras that we began yesterday
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on the program that I expect tocontinue through much of this week about the
position that the Wolves find themselves inand my belief that folks should not at
this point subscribe to this moving thegoalposts game that I mentioned yesterday is tell
me if you agree with me onthis, or let me know if you
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agree with me. It's merely theanticipation of the next game, the anticipation
of the next series. We don'thave much experience with it. And I
would argue that's a lot of thefun that even before the game. And
I don't necessarily mean just us analyzingit I'm saying and having guests on I
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just mean the average roube, thewhole process of you keep reminding yourself,
Yeah, we're here, We're inrarefied air. We've been here once.
That's where we are, and God, I wonder how this is going to
work. That to me is alsoas much fun of the as the actual
act of the game that got youthere. It's anticipating and this is true
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of anything. I mean, it'sParish, the thought getting to the super
Bowl, it's the two weeks leadingup to the game. The build up.
The build up is tremendous and thisis not as big a build up,
but it's in this town right now. There is no bigger story.
It's not even close. There's ahuge build up at this point, and
a lot of it is that justanticipation of where this is going to go
from here and what happens the nextgame, and who's saying what about whatever?
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And I said this earlier to somebody. All we're doing is talking Wolves
with everybody that we know, right, that's all anybody wants to talk about.
Whenever the season ends. I'm gonnabe bummed even if they win the
title because I just like watching thisteam play. I like how they play,
I like how they compete. Ilike how they've got the imbuntu.
Obviously, the ant thing is nextlevel. It's just a fun, enjoyable
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team to watch, and that Ithink is part of the anticipation is you
can't wait to see what they're gonnado next. You can't wait to see
who's going to be the hero,you can't wait to see what ant does,
what Carl does, the Rudy factor. Conley like, it's just a
fun team to watch. Somebody textedsix point two. Guy who's guarding Luca,
You're going to see a lot ofJaden McDaniels on him, which is
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interesting in that you know MC.I don't know that McDaniels would viewed as
a real physical player, right,He's you know, all the Wolves defenders
have some physicality to him. ButI mean he's a slender guy against a
guy who's built like a block,right. Yeah. So my guess is
you're going to see different people atdifferent times, but early and I think
that's what Johnny told us yesterday.That would be the likely belief with Aunt
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at least starting on Kyrie Irving BaseballConversation. Twins, meanwhile, are in
it appears in crisis, certainly froma record standpoint. They lost their seventh
in a row last night. They'regoing to be back in action in about
an hour. In the Nation's Capitolin Washington. Corey Provis is the TV
voice of the club and joins USweekly, and during the course of our
(25:00):
conversation we address both of the minicrises that have broken out over the course
of the last two or three days, one involving the Twins closer, the
other a meltdown from the manager Rockoafter another and what now seems to be
an endless series of feeble offensive performances. Corey Provis, I'm assuming that when
(25:22):
the team has a player's only meeting, they allow you into that as well,
they invite me, in fact,is encouraged when yes, when they
in fact there have been many timesDan, when does they they plan form
and they will not start them untilI'm down there. So yes, So
I got I got, I gotwin the DEVI was gonna happen last night,
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And I told Roy and dinartists theguys, I'd love to take the
bus back with you, but theseguys need me down there, so you're
on your own. So what haveyou what's the intel that you have heard
or you believe? Obviously, anotherdisastrous performance, twelve to three loss,
it's not surprising that the team youknow would would would resort to that.
But what do you think they're tryingto figure out? And did you hear
(26:08):
anything interesting about what came out ofthat meeting? I haven't heard anything yet.
And alaha down to the clubhouse.And it's rare that we hear stuff
that comes from the player's only discussions. And I think that's right. I
mean, I don't if things leakout from that, then that's going to
really, you know, get toget some guys upset so that that doesn't
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happen too often. But the timingof it, to me is a bit
odd because the day before, Roccohad a meeting of his own with the
guys that was after the game onSunday and whatever he said, they're hoping
to change for Monday. That thatdidn't happen, and then the player said,
you know what, let's let's havethis conversation just just between us.
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If I had a guess that,I think what Rocco's point was after the
game is that it's no secret thatthe Twins are a fastball hitting team.
That is clear from watching, thatis clear from studying. I know that
you know that, and most importantly, the opposition knows that. So what
is happening? They're not getting fastballs? And so Rocko made it a point
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last night during his post game sothat there was a period where there were
like ten to twelve pitches in arow that were all off speed, and
we as a team did not adjust. So I hope that that came up
amongst the players, that guys,let's start adjusting our approach, adjusting our
swing, because until we do that, those fastballs that we love to see
(27:36):
and love to hammer, we're notgoing to see him. Rocco, to
your point, I thought that thecomments he made after the loss last night.
We're about as direct and frontal asI've ever heard on any subject.
The guy just stood out, speakingof the national starter, Mitchell Parker,
guy just stood out there through offspeedpitches for like four straight innings. We
(27:56):
didn't do anything about it. Wecontinued to wave at them and look for
fastballs, which today they weren't coming, especially for the first five six innings.
In this stretch of games, we'reeven struggling. That's been a common
theme. That's not quality professional baseball. So does this indicate he's just more
pissed off than usual. Does thisindicate he's further along? And is you
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know, feeling comfortable about, youknow, going public a guy who generally
after games, no matter what hemight be feeling on the inside, I
don't think is often this direct,is he? There was a point last
year, and it was well publicizedand well documented what happened in Atlanta.
Now, remember they were swept inthat series. They were playing terribly,
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and they had that long players meetingbefore the team then went to Baltimore and
then some things changed around there fora little bit. It was also around
that time period where Roccos seemed tobe more involved with the daily hitters meetings,
and I wonder if that's going tostart happening again now, and maybe
even has happened that I haven't heardabout, because there was a point in
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the first half last year where comparablythis team was just floundering offensively and something
had to change, and part ofthat change involved the manager being a bit
more hands on with some of thosedaily meetings, and I wonder if we're
seeing more of that, if that'shappened, if it's happening in a case
like tonight with Patrick Corbin, isthis going to be a situation where you
(29:27):
know what I need to hear exactlywhat these guys are seeing, what these
guys are learning. And there wasa point where Rock was said, no,
I let my hitting coaches do thatand the advanced staff do that.
But he had to take on amore hands on look at things last year,
and based on his comments last night, Dan, I wonder if we're
(29:47):
going to see and maybe here's somethingsimilar. So the club, as you
well know, starts seven to thirteenand they have the seven turned seventeen three
stretch. Now with the twelve tothree loss last night, you're back to
a seven game losing streak after theseventeen and three, twenty four and twenty
three. I think now the overallrecord, I mean, you can't get
any more inconsistent than they have been. And we talked last week. I
(30:11):
think you at the top of thelist at hitting as the key aspect of
this. Is it as simple asthat? And how maddening is it?
I mean to get a feel,So what I mean? Are we the
Twins more the team that has struggled? Are they the team that through that
other stretch at least look dominant?What are what is this club? I
mean right now, I'd say it'sit's it's the latter I just because I
(30:33):
look at some of these numbers.And I'm not talking about home runs,
not part of the home runs,but I mean I'm talking. I'm not
talking about batting average. I meanthe numbers that the Twins front office,
the Twins coaches, and even someof the players themselves define their success and
lack thereof. And among them isweighted runs created plus how much how beneficial
(30:55):
are you being to creating runs foryour team? In terms of league average?
One hundred is a league average.There are just too many important guys
that are below league average and insome cases well below league average, and
that is the biggest problem right now. And you could look at it in
totality that during the seven game losingstraight DAN they have scored a total of
(31:17):
twelve rounds. Not going to win. You're just not going to win when
you score twelve runs in seven games. So that is the obvious take.
But to me, it's guys thatare underperforming and that you cannot hide,
and that's just not I'm not justgiving an opinion. I'm giving and appointing
to facts and data that that thatfront office and coaches, and as I
(31:40):
said, some players really will tellyou that, hey, I may be
batting to twenty, but my WRCplus is one twenty five and maybe my
OPS plus is one eighteen. I'mon the right track. My expected numbers
if we're talking about expected slugging orexpected WHOBA, things that will define okay.
(32:00):
Like Trevor Larnick is an example rightnow, like his ex wOBA is
expected weight at on Bay's average isreally strong. So that tells me and
would tell the player, you know, what what you're doing is right based
on the contact you're making The exvelocity, the launch angle, don't change
anything. You have a lot ofbad luck right now going against you,
(32:23):
so stick with that plan. Thoseline drives are going to be doubles,
are going to be home runs.Just some bad luck right now. But
that's not the masses here. Mostof these guys are underperforming. Eddie Julian
is a guy in particular whose numbershave really gone down. Alex Cherloff,
his numbers have really gone down.Christian Vosquez, I hate to say this,
(32:44):
performing worse this year than he waslast year, and last year was
a terrible offensive season. So there'sa lot of guys up and down this
lineup to me that are just comingnowhere near expectation or more importantly, how
the Twins front office projected these guysto perform when they began to build this
roster. So I mean, howmuch does this in the end come down
(33:07):
to stubbornness. I mean, youknow, when you listen to what Rocco
again had to say after the gameyesterday, it's if it's that obvious,
If it's I assume it was obviousto you, If it's obvious to him,
it has to be obvious to theto the hitters as well, and
is that we don't give a damn. We want to crush the ball,
we want to hit. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna wait for
(33:27):
the for the fastball. We're notgonna make any adjustment. We're gonna just
assume it's a fastball. How doyou get to that place where everybody seems
to understand exactly what's going on andpeople aren't doing about anything about it because
bad luck is bad luck, right, you can hit in bad luck that
exists. But that doesn't sound likewhat this is. This just sounds like
stubbornness. I think that's a partof it. And Logan Allen in particular,
(33:51):
who threw for Cleveland on Saturday.He was throwing ninety ninety one,
and man, Willmarto seemed to havethe best approach of anybody on Saturday night.
Whereas here's the guy that if he'sgoing to try to beat me inside,
good luck with we're not talking aboutninety five ninety eight. That's going
to be hard to pull. Iget it. But for a guy that's
(34:13):
throwing ninety ninety one, if he'scoming inside, thank you, then that
ball is going to go out withpower to left field, so he was
away away and Margot saw that andsaid, you know what, I'm going
to hit the ball the other way. Now, it's not the easiest thing.
The wall that get it. Baseballis a very, very hard game.
But I even asked Rocco Verbatim onSunday morning before the game, reflecting
(34:35):
on Saturday, I said, howmuch of what the Twins did not do
on Saturday was just based on approach? He said, a huge part of
it. So that was against LoganAllen and last night we saw a younger
guy, and Mitchell Parker throws comparably, I mean ninety one ninety two,
but the difference to me was thatParker's like, I'm not throwing these guys
(34:55):
fastball. I want to see ifthey're going to adjust on any kind of
breaking ball. And Carlos Korea didand he looked bad. It's first of
that struck out on three curve ballsand it didn't work. But then he
saw that curve ball a couple oftimes and then saw it again, and
then sixth inning hit a two runhome because he made an adjustment. So
I think that's probably what is eatingat the manager. Going back to what
(35:16):
we talked about earlier, Dan,is that it's one thing of a guy
that you haven't seen much of thefool as you find. But then what
are you doing? And then whatis the team doing collectively to adjust to
have better advance, more productive atbats that second third plate appearance when you
see him at a given night.Well, here's the other thing I'm curious
about. I Mean, there arehitters, and I to tell you this,
(35:37):
who are just not very good breakingball hitters. That's their weakness.
And so you can tell them,hey, you got to adjust, but
they're just not very good at doingthat. How would you evaluate in general,
this team's ability to even if theyacknowledge the adjustment trying to make the
adjustment that they that they can doanything with it. I think to be
(36:00):
determined because I'm not seeing it andI'm not seeing it, and it's not
just my perspective here. I mean, there is data that will tell you
the Twins are dead last in manyof these categories, if not dead last,
bottom five in baseball, and whatthey're doing against off speed pitches,
Oddly enough, Byron Buxton last nightand Byron Buxton as a player this season
(36:22):
is doing much better on breaking ballsthan he is on fastballs. He's slugging
over five hundred unbreaking balls, butnowhere near that on fastballs. So not
everybody is having the same success oreven the same difficulty when you break it
down pitch by pitch. But it'sjust an odd, odd thing to see
(36:42):
that collectively. How this team isjust so dead set on see the fastball.
Hit the fast ball, that's great. But if you take it down
the middle for strike one, guesswhat, that may be the only one
you're going to see that entire bat. And now you're going to have to
fight back and battle against changeups andsplits and curveballs. The rest of that
ab we are chatting with the TVvoice of the Minnesota Twins, Corey Provis,
(37:02):
who joins us weekly Twins Back inAction this evening, early evening,
a central time in the nation's capital. I need you to go back,
all right, I need us togo back to Sunday because I'm looking for
a translation from you to read betweenthe tea leaves. Here. You had
this unusual situation which Duran gives upa walk off home run on a curve
(37:25):
and the media jackals ask him asis expected after the game for you know,
basically what happened, And he saysvery publicly regarding throwing a curveball,
it's not my decision. I thoughtthat he wasn't good with fastballs. I'm
an employee here, so whatever Ineed to throw, I need to throw
(37:47):
it. And then obviously Roco getsaround to talking about it, I think
before the twelve to three game,saying I think he's just frustrated looking for
a way to vent and I thoughtit was unusual. I wasn't expecting and
I like to handle our stuff herewith a conversation in the clubhouse. It's
pretty again for this team that doesn'tseem to have, you know, many
(38:08):
of these sorts of situations that obviouslycan develop over the course of one hundred
and sixty two game season. Avery curious set of events there. What
did you make of that back andforth? So the a breaking ball,
it's harder to hit than a fastball, right just because of its spin,
because of where it's may go,where it may not go. And so
(38:30):
there's some of that now Joean Duranand this may surprise people, he struck
out more hitters last year. Ifyou combine everything with his curveball than he
did of his four seam or hissplitter. So he's got three weapons.
The bat to Will Brennan on Sundaythat ended and decided the game. If
(38:51):
you look at I didn't see whatBrennan did last night. But the guy
now is five home runs this seasonand three have come on breaking balls.
So you're trying to isolate, Okay, what does this guy do well against
and what are my best pitches.I still think Joan Duran has a really
good curveball. I do now.I wonder I'm not going to get back
to your point, but he's givenup two home runs now on his breaking
(39:12):
ball the last couple of times he'sthrown it. If he's needed tonight,
and hopefully he is and the Twinshave a chance to win this game.
I wonder if he's going to burythat for a little while, because there
was a period last year too wherehe got a little bit in a rut
giving up home runs on his breakingball, and he put that on the
shelf for a little bit, andVerlade and his four seems split. He
does have a good curveball, it'sjust the timing of it, the location
(39:36):
of it that is up for debate, and it was interesting. I saw
the same thing and followed up withit in Rocco's office yesterday, as everybody
else did, and Rocco made ita point to say that, yes,
pitchers have autonomy to make changes,should they so choose. Now, what
I wonder is how much autonomy doesa guy I like Duran, who's still
(40:00):
on the younger side of his bigleague career. God, does that compare
with a guy like Pablo Lopez oreven a guy like Joe Ryan here tonight?
Does that change with starters? Doesthat change with bullpen guys? I
would hope that that if a pitcheris being encouraged to throw something but he
doesn't have conviction to throw that inthat spot, that it's up to the
(40:23):
player to make that decision, becausethe last thing you want to see happen
is for player to throw something wherehe doesn't have conviction sure and he just
doesn't feel right throwing that. SoI would hope that at the big league
level. Yet, yes, thatthese guys have the ability to take all
the information and they have advice fromtheir pitching coach in particular, But then
(40:46):
the pitching team and it's not justone guy, Pete Mackiew's the pitching coach,
but there's a staff, and there'sa pitching department, there's a team
with the twins both that are herein DC. And of course, you
know, do a lot of prepand planning at back a target field.
You combine that with what the catchersare doing, how the game is evolving,
what they've seen from those hitters inthose in the Indies innings leading up
(41:07):
to that pivotal at bat. Iwould hope that the pictures, yes,
when it's all said and done,if they're being encouraged to throw this,
but they feel like throwing that,that they trust their gut that right now,
based on how they feel and basedon what I'm seeing from that guy,
with the advice from my catcher,that they have some autonomy to make
those decisions live in the moment andnot just rely on maybe something they planned
(41:30):
for four hours before the game evenbegan. Had Mackie just been to the
mound not? Yes, yes,he was going back to Sunday he was.
That's what I wonder, let themound visit and I don't know,
I don't know if he said,hey, first pitch Kervell Brennan. I
don't know if if Duran in thatmoment said something differently, Ryan Jeffers,
(41:53):
I think Voskas was in the gameat that point. I don't know if
if he said something that. Idon't know and I've not asked Pete that,
but I but there was amount visitright before he threw that pitch to
Will Brennan, after the intentional walkto Naylor and put two on, two
out in a two two game,and the next pitch he threw was the
breaking ball, and Brendon won thegame. Now that's what I wondered,
(42:15):
Like, usually you say, okay, yeah, in the end that the
the it is legal, we thinkfor a pitcher to catch off or or
or or a shake off a catcher. But if he felt maybe if if
Mackie had just been out there andliterally said breaking ball, man, this
is this is what we're looking forin this situation, maybe, as you
mentioned, given experience, Duran felta little less, a little more reticent
(42:37):
to shake him off. Now inthe end, again, I mean,
like you said, if you makea better pitch, you're you're you're fine.
And it's unusual for everybody to goto this public with this thing,
which I think is also worth watchingand kind of intriguing. But because I
would, like you said, Ithink you've hit the key point. To
me, the pitcher, no matterwhat you set up as a system,
(42:59):
ultimately the pitcher has to feel likehe can shake off a call because he's
the one who's got to make thecatch the pitch. So it's not just
this is the right pitch, thisis I'm comfortable in this moment. I
feel like I got good command ofthis pitch. I know what I'm doing
with this pitch right now. Tome, it has to always be that
he's got comfort shaking him off.And there have been moments in the history
(43:23):
of baseball where you see time call. Now Mountain visits right, They've they've
trimmed him down to four, whichI think nobody even notices that they trimmed
it from five to four. Whereyou see time called and you can still
do this, and you have apitcher and catcher meet and be like hey,
and you see them shouting at eachother. It's it's competitive. It's
in the heat of the moment andyou say, no, this is what
(43:45):
I'm throwing. And even that famousscene from Bull Durham right when they're going
back and forth, and Cost endsup telling them what he's gonna throw.
So it happens. But I wouldhope yes, at this level, if
you don't have your conviction to throwthe pitch that you feel the best about
with the game in the line,call time, call time, talk it
(44:07):
out. Don't just throw it becauseyou're told to throw it, because if
you're doing that, it's going toend up more often. What happened on
Sunday. Last item for today,Pablo obviously did not have it last night.
What did you see, Pablo Lopez? I mean, sweeper has not
been as good this season. Hissweeper was a weapon last year. And
(44:28):
I was looking this up before thegame, and you can study this,
and anybody can a baseball savant howa pitcher's movement is going with everything in
terms of vertical drop, in termsof horizontal movement, and how that ranks
in terms of league average, andit's color coded and all that stuff.
And I saw that his sweeper beforelast night just hasn't been as effective as
(44:49):
it was. It doesn't have thesame drop, it doesn't have the same
break on it. He's not missingas many bats so his wifth percentages down
to strikeout percentages down with that pitch, and so that one, that one
leaked a little bit on him lastnight, and so that it's been mainly
more of a problem to write ethan it has been the lefties. But
last night he gave up home runUH to Luis Garcia Junior with a sweeper
(45:12):
and that was the first extra basehit he's allowed to a lefty off of
the sweeper this season. But righty'sare seeing that much better and doing more
damage on that. And so Idon't know if his change was was very
good last night, But you knowhis start previously against the Yankees, he
worked into the seventh inning, hegave up three runs, He kept his
team in the game, and that'swhat that guy does more time than not.
(45:35):
Like what happened last night, National'sgot him fine, but it felt
like, you know, he gaveup a ton of runs. He gave
up seven runs. But the waythis offense is going, I mean,
you have you have such a slimmargin vera right now, first starter like
Joe Ryan tonight, you know,a typical Joe Ryan started sixth innings,
seven innings, given up three runs, but that's a lot right now.
But the way that this offense isjust moving along right now, so to
(45:59):
me, I'm curious if he'll finefor problem moving forward into his next start.
Does he have just the better feelnow that we're getting into warmer weather,
because that pitch is probably tough andcold weather. I get all that,
but now we're talking about warmth andit was a great night last night.
If he's able to find that feelfor that really good sweeper that we
saw him throw at an exceptional levellast year. Yeah, you mentioned the
(46:21):
forty five to twelve. That's howthey've been out how much they've been outscored
by in the during the seven gamelosing streak. And of the twelve runs,
didn't four come in the game wherethey're already down eleven nothing in the
ninth inning? Yeah that game onthat came on Sunday on Saturday night.
Yeah, in Cleveland where Pedro o'fielis pitching for the Guardian and this manager
game and eleven nothing lead and hehad to warm up his bullpen there in
(46:44):
the ninth inning because the Twins putup four runs. So yeah, I
mean the competitive aspect was long decided. So this is This is quite disturbing
right now. And it's not justyou know, one guy or two,
but if the offense is going toget right, this is the night to
do it. Patrick Corbin has beenterrible. I mean he has been terrible
for Washington this season. Era ishigh, it's approaching six. There's really
(47:06):
not much to him that you cansay, Okay, he does this well.
So if they struggle against a guylike tonight, then I think the
concern level rises even more because thisguy's been hit by just about everybody.
He's in the final year of hiscontract, He's thirty four years old.
Yes, the Twins have not donegreat lately against left handed starters, but
statistically, this is the night wherewhere these guys should should try to find
(47:28):
some success because the numbers say thatthey should. Thank you for the conversation,
sir, have a great call tonight, and we will chat next week.
Thanks man. Corey provis the televisionvoice of your Minnesota Twins. Top
five will include Eastern Conference Finals preview, a little bit of Twins, and
did lun Annie make it through Gameseven
I love michelas Man. I nevertire of having him on because he's so
He's funny, he's direct, he'sgot that little rye sense of humor where
it comes out of nowhere. Youknow, he's so good. And if
you're a Wolves fan, remember he'sbased now back in the Dallas Fort Worth
(00:27):
market, so he's around the Mavericksa lot. And he's picking the Wolves,
he said, not in a sweep, but in a decently long series.
Double t for the record, hasTimberwolves in six in this series.
And I know the more people pickthe Wolves, the more nervous you're gonna
get. And I get that toa certain extent, and that many fans
(00:49):
are because you just start worrying aboutwell, guy, you know, too
many people are kicking in on thisthing, and then it doesn't take much
to fall behind in Game one,right, and then something snowball and before
you know it, all is lost. But more people, I put it
this way, Minnesota sports fans,especially if this ride continues, are going
(01:11):
to have to get used to alot of praise on this team. Yeah,
that's the reality of it. Andthat gets back to the gravy game.
So, by the way, forthe record Corey provis Or thirty this
evening, bottom of this hour,and he lays out several of the Twins
controversies in great depth with us betweenfour thirty and five, and then Louis
(01:34):
will be in studio in the fiveo'clock hour as well. We'll talk plenty
of hockey and other things with him. The gravy game is Mitch kind of
alluded to it. So teams thatI don't want to say come out of
nowhere, because the Wolves were thenumber one seed most of this season,
but teams that don't have a lotof you know, playoff success, playoff
(01:57):
history, equity, and their beastpocket when they emerge to the degree that
the Wolves have already emerged, whichis to get to the NBA's Final Four.
One of the cliches sports questions isis it all gravy from here?
In other words, already they've achieveda lot more than a lot of people
(02:23):
thought they could more. You couldargue on the basis of a lack of
playoff success anybody should have expected ofthem. Has it reached the point now
where whatever the Wolves do from thispoint forward, whether it's win is expected
or lose, get eliminated and don'tmake it to the NBA Finals, That
(02:44):
it's all gravy. They've already statedtheir case that they are here to stay.
That even if it ends in disappointingfashion in this round or in the
NBA Finals where they will still beunderdogs of the Boston Celtics if Boston gets
there, that it doesn't matter.It's gravy. They've already cooked the main
(03:07):
course brilliantly, and whatever else theyget at this point, it's a nice
little bonus. So do you buythat notion that this is the gravy period
of the Minnesota Timberwolves run if theydo nothing else. Now, I'm gonna
say, short of getting swept,let's just say this series goes six or
seven and they lose it. Doyou say I didn't love it? Is
(03:30):
disappointing, I didn't like this happened. That happened, But this is all
gravy. They'd already achieved a certainstatus that is worthy of praise, and
we just go on from here.We take this as next year, you
try to take the next step,and so on and so on. I
think I would be more willing totalk gravy had they lost game seven in
(03:51):
Denver. Now that they have knockedoff the champs, now you're greedy and
they have home court advantage. Nowit's the finals. Would be the gravy
if they lose in this round toDallas, who's obviously good, I would
say, it's it's gravy that's beensitting there for like four or five days.
It's not it's not good gravy.I'm not in the gravy phase right
(04:14):
now. I might be closer tothe it's interesting to the gravy phase than
you. I want the finals now, but it's not like I'm gonna be
devastating. Well, I'll be devastating. Here's where it gets tricky. As
you said, you can't help butpay attention to the reality, which is
we have home court, we're higherseated yep than Dallas yep. So yeah,
(04:36):
I know I should be in thegravy period. But man, now
that we knocked off the defending champsand changed everything to the point where they're
out of the way because we knockedthem out, there's nobody in our path
and at least you know, obviouslyleft in the Western Conference that you say,
(04:57):
well, that's not a team thatthey should beat. It's funny how
it can switch. Yeah. Partof the inspiration for this conversation was your
guy Greene. He had a charttoday on ESPN on his morning show,
The TV Show, in which heranked in his mind right now the teams
(05:20):
who can be called unqualified successes onthe basis of what's already taken already taken
place, and he picked five teams. He had the Timberwolves no higher than
number four. The panel destroyed him. They said, that's ridiculously low when
(05:47):
you factor in several things about whatthe Wolves have already done. So and
that's kind of connected to the gravydiscussion because this doesn't take into account anything
that might happen after this. It'sup until now. Now. What Greene's
comeback was, well, if theythe Wolves win the title, then obviously
as an unqualified success, they're goingto go from four to one automatically.
(06:10):
They if they reached the finals,they might go from four to two,
and one might have to be theBoston Celtics, even though the Celtics are
in this no win position that they'reobligated one of these years to win the
thing because they've come as close asthey have. But again, and this
goes back to what we were talkingabout yesterday about moving the goalposts. For
(06:32):
me, right now, if youwere if let's just say there were no
more playoffs that this for whatever reason, there was another COVID scare and it
was over. We just have tosuspend operations now. I believe the Minnesota
Timberwolves go to number one as literallythe greatest success in two thousand and twenty
four to twenty five. I meanagain, we talked about this earlier a
(06:56):
year ago. They're punching each otherand punching walls, right they Yeah,
they played Denver reasonably tough, butthey lost the series in five games.
They're out in the first round.They had the number one seed almost this
entire season. They have the bestdefense in the league. They've developed it
both eye tests and analytically, bya long shot, analytically over any other
(07:20):
defense. They swept the team inthe first round that most people said was
a nightmare matchup for them. Theybeat the defending champions in seven games and
had to win game seven in Denver, had to win the last two games
of the series, did it,destroying the defending champions in game six here
(07:46):
in historic fashion, and then comingback from twenty points down again in historic
fashion to win Game seven. They'vealready won five road games in just two
series. Their head coach is intheir second row having to get up on
crutches to say, hey, Mikecalled time out there. So there's a
(08:11):
part of me that says, maybeI'm too Polydanna here. I'm saying,
on the basis of all those things, this is a successful season, a
wildly successful season for the Wolves.If they don't move any further. I
get the tricky part. Their ownsuccess has I think, almost forced you
(08:31):
to want to get a little greedierbecause then you say, well, there's
not the other team you're playing isn'tpedigreed now. The Mavericks got to the
conference finals two years ago. KyrieIrving is an accomplished playoff performer, right,
no question. Luca is an accomplishedplayoff performer. Streaky, but he's
(08:52):
been there. He was with theteam that got to the conference finals two
years ago. But I get howit feels like, well, no,
now the doors open in a waythat it rarely is for a team that
has had so little playoff success intheir history as the Wolves had. Usually,
you do have to take two orthree steps. But my god,
you're right there now, and there'snobody in front of you that you look
(09:15):
at as this, this this storiedfranchise that man to beat them, they've
already beaten that team on the teamthat's closest to that, right, the
defending champions as well. It's it'snot like when the Wolves, you know,
four lost to the Lakers, eventhough it was a water down version
of the Lakers that ended up losingin the finals. Like it was the
Lakers, it was Shack, itwas Kobe right like it was disappointing,
(09:37):
but you felt like, man,it was you didn't have You didn't have
have Sam Cassell I could argue yourmost important player, certainly backward player.
If people want to get in onit, good opportunity to hit the talk
back at the play some when wecome back microphone eye kind of the iHeartRadio
app. You got thirty seconds?Are we in the gravy phase of Minnesota
Timberwolves basketball for twenty twenty four?The fanombig, deck dot com' ANDNA give
you a shot to put a grandin your ham with our national cast contest.
(09:58):
You can enter the keyword fun atkfan dot com. That's your shot
at winning kfan dot com. Andthe keyword is fun. Yeah. I
can't say we're in the gravy phaseonly because of what's in front of you.
The opportunity here is very fleeting.This is the year you gotta do
it. As much as we haven'teven been close for so long, this
(10:20):
is the year you gotta do itbecause we're right there. We're knocking on
the door. That is from whathave you done for me lately? Guy?
Thank you? Hey Dann bretton Rochesterchecking in a game with you here.
I don't think we're really in agravy phase. I think we're in
a phase where we need to almosthave an expectation that we win. I
think this team has proven that theycan and that they will. I think
(10:43):
this team has made it clear thattheir expectation is that they do win as
well. So I'm going to holdmyself to the same standard they do.
I don't think this is gravy.This is a championship level team and we're
going to go after it. Hey, it's time from Stillwater. First of
all, I just want to saysix assful season by any standard, it's
amazing to be able to say thatabout a team in this state. No
(11:05):
matter what happens from here forward,this has been great. The second thing
I want to say, if welose in this round, I'm going to
be so disappointed, and everybody inthe state should be disappointed, because this
is an amazing opportunity. Hopefully theydo more with this opportunity than the Gopher
football team did with their chance inthe West. Micht no gravy here,
(11:28):
boys, I want the meat potatoes. We've earned every bit of this and
that's an organization. As the teamand for the fans, I want it
all getting strayed. How unusual isit for the host of the show,
the snarky a hole in the afternoon, to be the guy who's saying,
(11:54):
calm down. This has been asmashing success already, and the audience and
even you are the ones saying,damn it, no, this isn't nearly
enough. Opportunity is here, nowtake it now. I would I can
actually listen to that argument because thatcliche about you never know if it's gonna
(12:18):
be exactly the tea leaves are gonnabe, you're gonna be able to read
them the same way, or it'sgonna play out the same way. Yeah
again, I get that part,the idea that just because it's rare for
a team to ascend as quickly asthese guys have, that you should just
say I'll call up, slow down, don't worry that, you know,
guess what, make your own history. Forget what has been the past,
(12:41):
take full advantage of the opportunity.I like that aggressiveness. I won't argue
with it, but I can honestlytell you I think fans, if they
mean what they're saying, are moredemanding than the snarky host of the show
feels at this particular point. It'swhat this team has done to them.
This team has got them to thinkingabout an NBA championship or certainly a finals
(13:03):
berth. I'm not you know me, I'm not championship or bus right,
But when you've got home court,and you've got a team that I know
wasn't the same team that they arenow after the trade deadline, but a
team that was flirting, you know, essentially in the playing spot for much
of the season, and you werethe best team in the West for much
of the season until the final weekor so, when you ended up with
the third seed. It's hard notto think. I mean, I get
(13:26):
that. For me, it wouldhave been better if they lost Game seven.
You know, what are you gonnado? Yeah, right, chance,
Yeah, you knew they were goingto have it in them. But
what they did, how they didus like you guys are all penalizing them
for doing what they weren't expected todo and knocking on the defending champions in
Denver. I know. And nowthey've gone, well, they've gone to
a different level of Wow. Thisis when you're one of four teams left,
(13:50):
you do start really thinking about it. And it is interesting that we
are scared now of what people aresaying about the team when all we've asked
for twenty years is attention exactly weYou never talk about us, US.
You never talk about us. Youknow, you beat Denver in the regular
season and you're opening up with theDallas Cowboys or you never you don't even
watch our games. All you wantto do is rip Rudy. And now
(14:13):
everybody's watching and going, you knowwhat this team might win. I think
this is the favorite in the West, and maybe even in the favorite in
the finals, and people, Ithink I'm not as scared about it anymore.
It's unbelievable. It's crazy that we'rehaving these conversations that we're going to
be talking about the Wolves and notthe lottery and what's going on in Summer
League into June. It's crazy.So I think part of it for me
(14:33):
will be it's it's answering the unanswerable. The devil will be in the details
how the games go, how thegames go exactly. You know, are
you up three games to one andyou lose the series, you get swept,
you have a couple of games whereyou know, you unravel in the
(14:54):
fourth quarter. I you know,I think, at least for me,
those things are really important. It'show if they did lose, how did
they lose? No question. IfLuca, who is capable of this,
has a game where he scores,you know, fifty six and just is
(15:15):
guarded as closely as anybody could guardhim and still goes off, I'm not
sure I'm gonna be ready to callfor anybody's head or to say, oh
my god, what a what ahorrible disappointment. It's almost it's almost like
people have forgotten too quickly how farthis franchise has come with this particular run,
(15:39):
because Again, for me, it'snot just I mean, you can
say, well, guess what,look the media, there's four teams every
year this time of year. It'snot you know, there's no banners for
that. And to a certain extent, that's true. They're only halfway right.
They got to win sixteen games,they only want to eight. Correct,
all these teams that are in it, they've only gone halfway. It's
a it is a marathon, nota sprint. As Rudy's said, he
(16:00):
has more room in his stomach.But that's see. Yes, But that's
also part of my point is it'sreally hard and things intrude that work against
you, maybe an injury here ora call there, or a real hot
player on the other end of it. That's why for me it's hard to
say, man, you don't Ifyou don't close the deal against the Mavericks,
I might be done with this club, which I think is a bridge
(16:22):
too far. And I'm the guy, you know, I'm the snarky guy.
But again, it'll play to acertain extent, it will take care
of itself, probably on the basisof the way it plays out and how
they perform and how much you lookat that whatever happens in this series,
as was more about the old youknow, the the the the cliche we
talk about did the Timberwalls win itor the Monarcks lose it? You know
(16:47):
that kind of thing. Which ofthose two things was it? If that's
the way it goes, how muchdo you put on one team? The
winning team just they were just toogood. They just made every play and
they they've earned it. And evenif you're the losing team, he say,
well, I gotta tip my capsto them. They were extremely good.
But it does say a lot aboutthe run itself, how effective and
(17:11):
tremendous it's been that the the theswitch has been flipped to a place where
it's like, damn right, theybetter get to the NBA finals. Yeah,
what are you talking about here?Of course one guy didn't. The
one guy who says gonna be poed, Well, we'll see how that
goes. And I think even thathe might temper depending on how this thing
(17:33):
plays out. I think they're gonnawin the series. I do. Why
will be more surprised if they don'tthan if they do, because I do
think, as Mitch said, Idon't know that they have anybody who can
I think there's a decent chance AnthonyEdwards is going to be more consistent offensive
force in this series than he wasin the Denver series. And remember he
(17:55):
was not a great offensive force inevery game in the series' right, And
I think, look, Kyrie isa great shot maker. Man, he's
awfully good. But I think thatfor me, the most interesting part about
this series might be Anthony Edwards guardingKyrie and if that works. The one
concern you always have is foul trouble, right, That's always That's a lot
(18:18):
of the reason why teams often don'tput their best scorer on the other team's
best score if possible. Right,It's not that they don't think they're capable.
It's oh god, two quick fileseven minus into the game, and
now we got to change everything thatwe do. Yep so, And my
guess is he won't play them thewhole game either. That's the beauty of
the Wolves defense, in the versatilityof the wing defenders is they'll they'll they'll
(18:41):
move people, several people around onthem. I did like how they just
put Ant on Murray in the secondhalf and basically said go get them,
and even the last possession of thegame. Yes, when it was over.
I mean it should have been overa long time before. But you
know, Ant was waving and thenJayden tried to spike it and dunk it
and that's end of the game becauseDenver was really willing to just lay down.
(19:03):
Well, here's the most important point. I don't I don't think there's
any reason to believe that the Wolvesthemselves are saying gravy, we got the
you know, we did what weneeded to do, and well, no
sweat, not even close. That'sthe beauty of it. I think they
are well aware of, man,we might not have to wait any longer.
We might not have to wait anotherseason the way Denver had to wait
(19:26):
like three. It might be herefor us right now. So I don't
think they have the gravy complex.I think it's an interesting, uh talking
point. And as I said,I think Greenberg for now had the Wolves
way too low on the base.They, mister Dems, have been easily,
in my view, the most impressiveplayoff team at this point. I
don't think it's close, right,I mean, based on who they've played,
(19:49):
the circumstances, et cetera, theinjury, you know, I mean
again, the Pacers have It's nottheir fault, but they've they've they've played
two wounded teams. The celt havebeen utterly unspectacular in losing games at home.
Right, that made no sense extendingseries beyond how they should have even
been extended. And the Mavericks havebeen good, I think. But the
(20:12):
Clippers were injury ravaged, right,I mean they basically their best player,
Kawhi wasn't available for most of it, and and Oklahoma City is good,
but they've got some limitations as aswell. All right, let's do this.
This will be the bottom of thehour pause we have. I had
(20:33):
one other thing I wanted to getinto. Maybe it was via text.
Where did it go? I can't. I can't find it. But there's
something something about the Jimmy J.Johnson news conference that's stuck in my head.
I'll save it and try to rememberit later. We are going to
talk baseball next segment with Corey Proviswho joins US Weekly. And the contrast
(20:53):
is interesting, right, the Wolves, everybody's happy, Everybody loves one another,
they're on the path, they feelgood about their situation, they feel
good about each other. Meanwhile,the Twins are bickering. Right, you've
got a relief pitcher, your closerwho's basically saying, don't blame me for
throwing a hanging breaking ball. Iwas ordered to do it publicly. And
(21:15):
then you got Rocco publicly lambasting theclub on the basis of another undisciplined offensive
performance in which apparently we refuse toadjust because we love to hit fastball so
much, we refuse to adjust thefact that the guy pitching yesterday was just
not going to give us the pitchthat we wanted. All of that will
be discussed with Corey provis as theTwins try to break a seven game losing
(21:37):
street That's find our Mall of America'sStreet team all summer long at all of
our events. You can confine them, ask about their Mall of America mystery
cards where everyone is a winner.Check out where the street team will be
next to Cafe dot Com. Theword calendar. I know what it was.
It come back to me part ofthe cell bras that we began yesterday
(22:02):
on the program that I expect tocontinue through much of this week about the
position that the Wolves find themselves inand my belief that folks should not at
this point subscribe to this moving thegoalposts game that I mentioned yesterday is tell
me if you agree with me onthis, or let me know if you
(22:23):
agree with me. It's merely theanticipation of the next game, the anticipation
of the next series. We don'thave much experience with it. And I
would argue that's a lot of thefun that even before the game. And
I don't necessarily mean just us analyzingit I'm saying and having guests on I
(22:45):
just mean the average roube, thewhole process of you keep reminding yourself,
Yeah, we're here, We're inrarefied air. We've been here once.
That's where we are, and God, I wonder how this is going to
work. That to me is alsoas much fun of the as the actual
act of the game that got youthere. It's anticipating and this is true
(23:07):
of anything. I mean, it'sParish, the thought getting to the super
Bowl, it's the two weeks leadingup to the game. The build up.
The build up is tremendous and thisis not as big a build up,
but it's in this town right now. There is no bigger story.
It's not even close. There's ahuge build up at this point, and
a lot of it is that justanticipation of where this is going to go
from here and what happens the nextgame, and who's saying what about whatever?
(23:30):
And I said this earlier to somebody. All we're doing is talking Wolves
with everybody that we know, right, that's all anybody wants to talk about.
Whenever the season ends. I'm gonnabe bummed even if they win the
title because I just like watching thisteam play. I like how they play,
I like how they compete. Ilike how they've got the imbuntu.
Obviously, the ant thing is nextlevel. It's just a fun, enjoyable
(23:52):
team to watch, and that Ithink is part of the anticipation is you
can't wait to see what they're gonnado next. You can't wait to see
who's going to be the hero,you can't wait to see what ant does,
what Carl does, the Rudy factor. Conley like, it's just a
fun team to watch. Somebody textedsix point two. Guy who's guarding Luca,
You're going to see a lot ofJaden McDaniels on him, which is
(24:14):
interesting in that you know MC.I don't know that McDaniels would viewed as
a real physical player, right,He's you know, all the Wolves defenders
have some physicality to him. ButI mean he's a slender guy against a
guy who's built like a block,right. Yeah. So my guess is
you're going to see different people atdifferent times, but early and I think
that's what Johnny told us yesterday.That would be the likely belief with Aunt
(24:38):
at least starting on Kyrie Irving BaseballConversation. Twins, meanwhile, are in
it appears in crisis, certainly froma record standpoint. They lost their seventh
in a row last night. They'regoing to be back in action in about
an hour. In the Nation's Capitolin Washington. Corey Provis is the TV
voice of the club and joins USweekly, and during the course of our
(25:00):
conversation we address both of the minicrises that have broken out over the course
of the last two or three days, one involving the Twins closer, the
other a meltdown from the manager Rockoafter another and what now seems to be
an endless series of feeble offensive performances. Corey Provis, I'm assuming that when
(25:22):
the team has a player's only meeting, they allow you into that as well,
they invite me, in fact,is encouraged when yes, when they
in fact there have been many timesDan, when does they they plan form
and they will not start them untilI'm down there. So yes, So
I got I got, I gotwin the DEVI was gonna happen last night,
(25:44):
And I told Roy and dinartists theguys, I'd love to take the
bus back with you, but theseguys need me down there, so you're
on your own. So what haveyou what's the intel that you have heard
or you believe? Obviously, anotherdisastrous performance, twelve to three loss,
it's not surprising that the team youknow would would would resort to that.
But what do you think they're tryingto figure out? And did you hear
(26:08):
anything interesting about what came out ofthat meeting? I haven't heard anything yet.
And alaha down to the clubhouse.And it's rare that we hear stuff
that comes from the player's only discussions. And I think that's right. I
mean, I don't if things leakout from that, then that's going to
really, you know, get toget some guys upset so that that doesn't
(26:30):
happen too often. But the timingof it, to me is a bit
odd because the day before, Roccohad a meeting of his own with the
guys that was after the game onSunday and whatever he said, they're hoping
to change for Monday. That thatdidn't happen, and then the player said,
you know what, let's let's havethis conversation just just between us.
(26:52):
If I had a guess that,I think what Rocco's point was after the
game is that it's no secret thatthe Twins are a fastball hitting team.
That is clear from watching, thatis clear from studying. I know that
you know that, and most importantly, the opposition knows that. So what
is happening? They're not getting fastballs? And so Rocko made it a point
(27:14):
last night during his post game sothat there was a period where there were
like ten to twelve pitches in arow that were all off speed, and
we as a team did not adjust. So I hope that that came up
amongst the players, that guys,let's start adjusting our approach, adjusting our
swing, because until we do that, those fastballs that we love to see
(27:36):
and love to hammer, we're notgoing to see him. Rocco, to
your point, I thought that thecomments he made after the loss last night.
We're about as direct and frontal asI've ever heard on any subject.
The guy just stood out, speakingof the national starter, Mitchell Parker,
guy just stood out there through offspeedpitches for like four straight innings. We
(27:56):
didn't do anything about it. Wecontinued to wave at them and look for
fastballs, which today they weren't coming, especially for the first five six innings.
In this stretch of games, we'reeven struggling. That's been a common
theme. That's not quality professional baseball. So does this indicate he's just more
pissed off than usual. Does thisindicate he's further along? And is you
(28:18):
know, feeling comfortable about, youknow, going public a guy who generally
after games, no matter what hemight be feeling on the inside, I
don't think is often this direct,is he? There was a point last
year, and it was well publicizedand well documented what happened in Atlanta.
Now, remember they were swept inthat series. They were playing terribly,
(28:40):
and they had that long players meetingbefore the team then went to Baltimore and
then some things changed around there fora little bit. It was also around
that time period where Roccos seemed tobe more involved with the daily hitters meetings,
and I wonder if that's going tostart happening again now, and maybe
even has happened that I haven't heardabout, because there was a point in
(29:03):
the first half last year where comparablythis team was just floundering offensively and something
had to change, and part ofthat change involved the manager being a bit
more hands on with some of thosedaily meetings, and I wonder if we're
seeing more of that, if that'shappened, if it's happening in a case
like tonight with Patrick Corbin, isthis going to be a situation where you
(29:27):
know what I need to hear exactlywhat these guys are seeing, what these
guys are learning. And there wasa point where Rock was said, no,
I let my hitting coaches do thatand the advanced staff do that.
But he had to take on amore hands on look at things last year,
and based on his comments last night, Dan, I wonder if we're
(29:47):
going to see and maybe here's somethingsimilar. So the club, as you
well know, starts seven to thirteenand they have the seven turned seventeen three
stretch. Now with the twelve tothree loss last night, you're back to
a seven game losing streak after theseventeen and three, twenty four and twenty
three. I think now the overallrecord, I mean, you can't get
any more inconsistent than they have been. And we talked last week. I
(30:11):
think you at the top of thelist at hitting as the key aspect of
this. Is it as simple asthat? And how maddening is it?
I mean to get a feel,So what I mean? Are we the
Twins more the team that has struggled? Are they the team that through that
other stretch at least look dominant?What are what is this club? I
mean right now, I'd say it'sit's it's the latter I just because I
(30:33):
look at some of these numbers.And I'm not talking about home runs,
not part of the home runs,but I mean I'm talking. I'm not
talking about batting average. I meanthe numbers that the Twins front office,
the Twins coaches, and even someof the players themselves define their success and
lack thereof. And among them isweighted runs created plus how much how beneficial
(30:55):
are you being to creating runs foryour team? In terms of league average?
One hundred is a league average.There are just too many important guys
that are below league average and insome cases well below league average, and
that is the biggest problem right now. And you could look at it in
totality that during the seven game losingstraight DAN they have scored a total of
(31:17):
twelve rounds. Not going to win. You're just not going to win when
you score twelve runs in seven games. So that is the obvious take.
But to me, it's guys thatare underperforming and that you cannot hide,
and that's just not I'm not justgiving an opinion. I'm giving and appointing
to facts and data that that thatfront office and coaches, and as I
(31:40):
said, some players really will tellyou that, hey, I may be
batting to twenty, but my WRCplus is one twenty five and maybe my
OPS plus is one eighteen. I'mon the right track. My expected numbers
if we're talking about expected slugging orexpected WHOBA, things that will define okay.
(32:00):
Like Trevor Larnick is an example rightnow, like his ex wOBA is
expected weight at on Bay's average isreally strong. So that tells me and
would tell the player, you know, what what you're doing is right based
on the contact you're making The exvelocity, the launch angle, don't change
anything. You have a lot ofbad luck right now going against you,
(32:23):
so stick with that plan. Thoseline drives are going to be doubles,
are going to be home runs.Just some bad luck right now. But
that's not the masses here. Mostof these guys are underperforming. Eddie Julian
is a guy in particular whose numbershave really gone down. Alex Cherloff,
his numbers have really gone down.Christian Vosquez, I hate to say this,
(32:44):
performing worse this year than he waslast year, and last year was
a terrible offensive season. So there'sa lot of guys up and down this
lineup to me that are just comingnowhere near expectation or more importantly, how
the Twins front office projected these guysto perform when they began to build this
roster. So I mean, howmuch does this in the end come down
(33:07):
to stubbornness. I mean, youknow, when you listen to what Rocco
again had to say after the gameyesterday, it's if it's that obvious,
If it's I assume it was obviousto you, If it's obvious to him,
it has to be obvious to theto the hitters as well, and
is that we don't give a damn. We want to crush the ball,
we want to hit. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna wait for
(33:27):
the for the fastball. We're notgonna make any adjustment. We're gonna just
assume it's a fastball. How doyou get to that place where everybody seems
to understand exactly what's going on andpeople aren't doing about anything about it because
bad luck is bad luck, right, you can hit in bad luck that
exists. But that doesn't sound likewhat this is. This just sounds like
stubbornness. I think that's a partof it. And Logan Allen in particular,
(33:51):
who threw for Cleveland on Saturday.He was throwing ninety ninety one,
and man, Willmarto seemed to havethe best approach of anybody on Saturday night.
Whereas here's the guy that if he'sgoing to try to beat me inside,
good luck with we're not talking aboutninety five ninety eight. That's going
to be hard to pull. Iget it. But for a guy that's
(34:13):
throwing ninety ninety one, if he'scoming inside, thank you, then that
ball is going to go out withpower to left field, so he was
away away and Margot saw that andsaid, you know what, I'm going
to hit the ball the other way. Now, it's not the easiest thing.
The wall that get it. Baseballis a very, very hard game.
But I even asked Rocco Verbatim onSunday morning before the game, reflecting
(34:35):
on Saturday, I said, howmuch of what the Twins did not do
on Saturday was just based on approach? He said, a huge part of
it. So that was against LoganAllen and last night we saw a younger
guy, and Mitchell Parker throws comparably, I mean ninety one ninety two,
but the difference to me was thatParker's like, I'm not throwing these guys
(34:55):
fastball. I want to see ifthey're going to adjust on any kind of
breaking ball. And Carlos Korea didand he looked bad. It's first of
that struck out on three curve ballsand it didn't work. But then he
saw that curve ball a couple oftimes and then saw it again, and
then sixth inning hit a two runhome because he made an adjustment. So
I think that's probably what is eatingat the manager. Going back to what
(35:16):
we talked about earlier, Dan,is that it's one thing of a guy
that you haven't seen much of thefool as you find. But then what
are you doing? And then whatis the team doing collectively to adjust to
have better advance, more productive atbats that second third plate appearance when you
see him at a given night.Well, here's the other thing I'm curious
about. I Mean, there arehitters, and I to tell you this,
(35:37):
who are just not very good breakingball hitters. That's their weakness.
And so you can tell them,hey, you got to adjust, but
they're just not very good at doingthat. How would you evaluate in general,
this team's ability to even if theyacknowledge the adjustment trying to make the
adjustment that they that they can doanything with it. I think to be
(36:00):
determined because I'm not seeing it andI'm not seeing it, and it's not
just my perspective here. I mean, there is data that will tell you
the Twins are dead last in manyof these categories, if not dead last,
bottom five in baseball, and whatthey're doing against off speed pitches,
Oddly enough, Byron Buxton last nightand Byron Buxton as a player this season
(36:22):
is doing much better on breaking ballsthan he is on fastballs. He's slugging
over five hundred unbreaking balls, butnowhere near that on fastballs. So not
everybody is having the same success oreven the same difficulty when you break it
down pitch by pitch. But it'sjust an odd, odd thing to see
(36:42):
that collectively. How this team isjust so dead set on see the fastball.
Hit the fast ball, that's great. But if you take it down
the middle for strike one, guesswhat, that may be the only one
you're going to see that entire bat. And now you're going to have to
fight back and battle against changeups andsplits and curveballs. The rest of that
ab we are chatting with the TVvoice of the Minnesota Twins, Corey Provis,
(37:02):
who joins us weekly Twins Back inAction this evening, early evening,
a central time in the nation's capital. I need you to go back,
all right, I need us togo back to Sunday because I'm looking for
a translation from you to read betweenthe tea leaves. Here. You had
this unusual situation which Duran gives upa walk off home run on a curve
(37:25):
and the media jackals ask him asis expected after the game for you know,
basically what happened, And he saysvery publicly regarding throwing a curveball,
it's not my decision. I thoughtthat he wasn't good with fastballs. I'm
an employee here, so whatever Ineed to throw, I need to throw
(37:47):
it. And then obviously Roco getsaround to talking about it, I think
before the twelve to three game,saying I think he's just frustrated looking for
a way to vent and I thoughtit was unusual. I wasn't expecting and
I like to handle our stuff herewith a conversation in the clubhouse. It's
pretty again for this team that doesn'tseem to have, you know, many
(38:08):
of these sorts of situations that obviouslycan develop over the course of one hundred
and sixty two game season. Avery curious set of events there. What
did you make of that back andforth? So the a breaking ball,
it's harder to hit than a fastball, right just because of its spin,
because of where it's may go,where it may not go. And so
(38:30):
there's some of that now Joean Duranand this may surprise people, he struck
out more hitters last year. Ifyou combine everything with his curveball than he
did of his four seam or hissplitter. So he's got three weapons.
The bat to Will Brennan on Sundaythat ended and decided the game. If
(38:51):
you look at I didn't see whatBrennan did last night. But the guy
now is five home runs this seasonand three have come on breaking balls.
So you're trying to isolate, Okay, what does this guy do well against
and what are my best pitches.I still think Joan Duran has a really
good curveball. I do now.I wonder I'm not going to get back
to your point, but he's givenup two home runs now on his breaking
(39:12):
ball the last couple of times he'sthrown it. If he's needed tonight,
and hopefully he is and the Twinshave a chance to win this game.
I wonder if he's going to burythat for a little while, because there
was a period last year too wherehe got a little bit in a rut
giving up home runs on his breakingball, and he put that on the
shelf for a little bit, andVerlade and his four seems split. He
does have a good curveball, it'sjust the timing of it, the location
(39:36):
of it that is up for debate, and it was interesting. I saw
the same thing and followed up withit in Rocco's office yesterday, as everybody
else did, and Rocco made ita point to say that, yes,
pitchers have autonomy to make changes,should they so choose. Now, what
I wonder is how much autonomy doesa guy I like Duran, who's still
(40:00):
on the younger side of his bigleague career. God, does that compare
with a guy like Pablo Lopez oreven a guy like Joe Ryan here tonight?
Does that change with starters? Doesthat change with bullpen guys? I
would hope that that if a pitcheris being encouraged to throw something but he
doesn't have conviction to throw that inthat spot, that it's up to the
(40:23):
player to make that decision, becausethe last thing you want to see happen
is for player to throw something wherehe doesn't have conviction sure and he just
doesn't feel right throwing that. SoI would hope that at the big league
level. Yet, yes, thatthese guys have the ability to take all
the information and they have advice fromtheir pitching coach in particular, But then
(40:46):
the pitching team and it's not justone guy, Pete Mackiew's the pitching coach,
but there's a staff, and there'sa pitching department, there's a team
with the twins both that are herein DC. And of course, you
know, do a lot of prepand planning at back a target field.
You combine that with what the catchersare doing, how the game is evolving,
what they've seen from those hitters inthose in the Indies innings leading up
(41:07):
to that pivotal at bat. Iwould hope that the pictures, yes,
when it's all said and done,if they're being encouraged to throw this,
but they feel like throwing that,that they trust their gut that right now,
based on how they feel and basedon what I'm seeing from that guy,
with the advice from my catcher,that they have some autonomy to make
those decisions live in the moment andnot just rely on maybe something they planned
(41:30):
for four hours before the game evenbegan. Had Mackie just been to the
mound not? Yes, yes,he was going back to Sunday he was.
That's what I wonder, let themound visit and I don't know,
I don't know if he said,hey, first pitch Kervell Brennan. I
don't know if if Duran in thatmoment said something differently, Ryan Jeffers,
(41:53):
I think Voskas was in the gameat that point. I don't know if
if he said something that. Idon't know and I've not asked Pete that,
but I but there was amount visitright before he threw that pitch to
Will Brennan, after the intentional walkto Naylor and put two on, two
out in a two two game,and the next pitch he threw was the
breaking ball, and Brendon won thegame. Now that's what I wondered,
(42:15):
Like, usually you say, okay, yeah, in the end that the
the it is legal, we thinkfor a pitcher to catch off or or
or or a shake off a catcher. But if he felt maybe if if
Mackie had just been out there andliterally said breaking ball, man, this
is this is what we're looking forin this situation, maybe, as you
mentioned, given experience, Duran felta little less, a little more reticent
(42:37):
to shake him off. Now inthe end, again, I mean,
like you said, if you makea better pitch, you're you're you're fine.
And it's unusual for everybody to goto this public with this thing,
which I think is also worth watchingand kind of intriguing. But because I
would, like you said, Ithink you've hit the key point. To
me, the pitcher, no matterwhat you set up as a system,
(42:59):
ultimately the pitcher has to feel likehe can shake off a call because he's
the one who's got to make thecatch the pitch. So it's not just
this is the right pitch, thisis I'm comfortable in this moment. I
feel like I got good command ofthis pitch. I know what I'm doing
with this pitch right now. Tome, it has to always be that
he's got comfort shaking him off.And there have been moments in the history
(43:23):
of baseball where you see time call. Now Mountain visits right, They've they've
trimmed him down to four, whichI think nobody even notices that they trimmed
it from five to four. Whereyou see time called and you can still
do this, and you have apitcher and catcher meet and be like hey,
and you see them shouting at eachother. It's it's competitive. It's
in the heat of the moment andyou say, no, this is what
(43:45):
I'm throwing. And even that famousscene from Bull Durham right when they're going
back and forth, and Cost endsup telling them what he's gonna throw.
So it happens. But I wouldhope yes, at this level, if
you don't have your conviction to throwthe pitch that you feel the best about
with the game in the line,call time, call time, talk it
(44:07):
out. Don't just throw it becauseyou're told to throw it, because if
you're doing that, it's going toend up more often. What happened on
Sunday. Last item for today,Pablo obviously did not have it last night.
What did you see, Pablo Lopez? I mean, sweeper has not
been as good this season. Hissweeper was a weapon last year. And
(44:28):
I was looking this up before thegame, and you can study this,
and anybody can a baseball savant howa pitcher's movement is going with everything in
terms of vertical drop, in termsof horizontal movement, and how that ranks
in terms of league average, andit's color coded and all that stuff.
And I saw that his sweeper beforelast night just hasn't been as effective as
(44:49):
it was. It doesn't have thesame drop, it doesn't have the same
break on it. He's not missingas many bats so his wifth percentages down
to strikeout percentages down with that pitch, and so that one, that one
leaked a little bit on him lastnight, and so that it's been mainly
more of a problem to write ethan it has been the lefties. But
last night he gave up home runUH to Luis Garcia Junior with a sweeper
(45:12):
and that was the first extra basehit he's allowed to a lefty off of
the sweeper this season. But righty'sare seeing that much better and doing more
damage on that. And so Idon't know if his change was was very
good last night, But you knowhis start previously against the Yankees, he
worked into the seventh inning, hegave up three runs, He kept his
team in the game, and that'swhat that guy does more time than not.
(45:35):
Like what happened last night, National'sgot him fine, but it felt
like, you know, he gaveup a ton of runs. He gave
up seven runs. But the waythis offense is going, I mean,
you have you have such a slimmargin vera right now, first starter like
Joe Ryan tonight, you know,a typical Joe Ryan started sixth innings,
seven innings, given up three runs, but that's a lot right now.
But the way that this offense isjust moving along right now, so to
(45:59):
me, I'm curious if he'll finefor problem moving forward into his next start.
Does he have just the better feelnow that we're getting into warmer weather,
because that pitch is probably tough andcold weather. I get all that,
but now we're talking about warmth andit was a great night last night.
If he's able to find that feelfor that really good sweeper that we
saw him throw at an exceptional levellast year. Yeah, you mentioned the
(46:21):
forty five to twelve. That's howthey've been out how much they've been outscored
by in the during the seven gamelosing streak. And of the twelve runs,
didn't four come in the game wherethey're already down eleven nothing in the
ninth inning? Yeah that game onthat came on Sunday on Saturday night.
Yeah, in Cleveland where Pedro o'fielis pitching for the Guardian and this manager
game and eleven nothing lead and hehad to warm up his bullpen there in
(46:44):
the ninth inning because the Twins putup four runs. So yeah, I
mean the competitive aspect was long decided. So this is This is quite disturbing
right now. And it's not justyou know, one guy or two,
but if the offense is going toget right, this is the night to
do it. Patrick Corbin has beenterrible. I mean he has been terrible
for Washington this season. Era ishigh, it's approaching six. There's really
(47:06):
not much to him that you cansay, Okay, he does this well.
So if they struggle against a guylike tonight, then I think the
concern level rises even more because thisguy's been hit by just about everybody.
He's in the final year of hiscontract, He's thirty four years old.
Yes, the Twins have not donegreat lately against left handed starters, but
statistically, this is the night wherewhere these guys should should try to find
(47:28):
some success because the numbers say thatthey should. Thank you for the conversation,
sir, have a great call tonight, and we will chat next week.
Thanks man. Corey provis the televisionvoice of your Minnesota Twins. Top
five will include Eastern Conference Finals preview, a little bit of Twins, and
did lun Annie make it through Gameseven
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