Here are three thoughts following the Twins' loss to Houston
SHOULD MEYER HAVE STAYED IN?: This question came up on Twitter as the third inning unfolded. Meyer's history is that he lets games get away from him. It happened to him at Rochester, and it was happening on Tuesday. I could see why Paul Molitor took him out of the game. The most pitches he threw in a game while in Rochester was 98. He ended up not pitching in a game for nine days once he got up here, then threw 29 pitches in relief on Friday. He wasn't going to be allowed to throw 90 pitches on Tuesday, and Molitor decided it was too risky to leave him in on Tuesday. I would have given Meyer one more batter, maybe, I would not have let him face Carlos Gomez again. He was on his way to 70 pitches in three innings. In 2 2/3 innings, Meyer gave up three runs on three hits and three walks with four strikeouts. Only 53 percent of his pitches were strikes. Molitor believed that Meyer would have had better results if he had gotten his breaking ball over for strikes more often.
``The ones he threw right at (the zone), they would freeze," Molitor said of Houston's hitters. ``The ones he got the strikeouts on, he's got to do that the first pitch and he's got to throw it for a strike. That's a hard pitch to hit when you (also) throw 97." Even Meyer admitted that he sensed that Houston batters were laying off his curve. Hard to pitch with one pitch. UPDATE: Sorry about the typing mistakes in the midnight edition.
ROSTER MOVE: The Twins sent Meyer back to Rochester after the game and called up righthander J.R. Graham so they could have another arm in the bullpen. So the Twins will stay with 13 pitchers. For the second straight season the Twins talk about carrying 12 pitchers but that 13th one keeps popping up in the bullpen. And Graham brings a 10.80 ERA with him, so he'll probably be used in blowouts or extra-inning games only.
REPLAY: When I saw the first replay of Jason Castro's home run, I was convinced it had hit high off the wall and that it was not a home run. After nearly three minutes on the phone with MLB headquarters, umpires stuck with their original call. Huh? Molitor was out of the dugout before Castro had reached third. Castro had stopped at second and began to take off his shin guard and asked for time when he was told to keep jogging the bases. ``I saw the ball hit below the line," Molitor said. ``The fans were trying to reach for the ball. You can't really question it. The explanation from afar was that it was fan interference. Obviously they thought it was above the rail, and the ball would have carried out if it was fan interference.. Even if they thought it was borderline and they thought it was fan interference, they are not going to reverse the call."
