5 Thoughts: The Good, the Bad and the Eddie

Thoughts on Rosario's return, an odd pitching decision and its fallout, plus Miguel Sanó becoming a bench bat for the Twins.

This column presents 5 Thoughts on the Twins after winning 2 of 3* against the baseball team from Cleveland.

*With one game washed out and rescheduled for Sept. 14.

1) The two sides of pitching matchups

The Twins lost Thursday when José Berríos and Taylor Rogers pitched, and that hurts. The offense this time that failed to deliver the knockout punch when Cleveland starter J.C. Mejia clearly was on the ropes. He was struggling with his command early and appeared rattled after two balks. It certainly seemed like the game was there for the taking. The Twins failed a couple times to push more runs across in the early innings, then Mejia settled in, and eventually the Twins lost the opener, 4-1.

Good teams all are trying to do the same thing with their best relievers. Say hypothetically you know at the beginning of the year that your best reliever will pitch 70 innings. That’s not very many, by volume, out of your total of approximately 1,450 over a season.

So, if you know you’re going to b…