Chin Music w/ Roy Smalley, LaVelle E. Neal III & Jim Souhan - Minnesota Twins Podcast · Talk North Podcast Network

Twins' injuries pile up

·26 min·1 clip

Roy Smalley says a spring-training tweak should end any World Baseball Classic plan.

1. Chin Music w/ Roy Smalley, LaVelle E. Neal III & Jim Souhan centers on the Minnesota Twins' injury problems and what they mean for the roster. 2. Roy Smalley, a former Twins star and broadcaster, LaVelle E. Neal III, a baseball columnist, and Jim Souhan, the TalkNorth.com host, frame the discussion with their different viewpoints. 3. The episode asks whether the Twins' injury pattern is unusually severe and how much damage it is already doing in camp. 4. Jim Souhan starts with Tony Oliva, Kirby Puckett, Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, Royce Lewis, Byron Buxton, and Pablo Lopez as a history of painful losses. 5. Roy Smalley says he cannot think of another team with a similar long-term run of injuries to players of comparable importance. 6. Smalley points to the Twins' 1980s and early 1990s teams as a rare period when the franchise still won despite injuries. 7. LaVelle Neal III says Pablo Lopez is shut down for the season, which immediately changes the Twins' pitching outlook. 8. Neal adds that David Festa is shut down for a while, and Joe Ryan is still being monitored after a minor setback. 9. Neal says Royce Lewis had an MRI that came back clean, but the fact that it was needed adds to the camp concern. 10. Neal also recounts Josh Bell telling Lewis that nobody will care what he did against the Pittsburgh Pirates in a February game. 11. Smalley says Joe Ryan should not push a World Baseball Classic appearance if he has had a spring-training tweak. 12. Smalley says a pitcher can be patriotic and still put opening day and the Twins first. 13. Neal says the Twins' starting-pitching depth was supposed to be a strength, but it has already been depleted. 14. Neal notes that Simeon Woods Richardson now looks locked into a rotation role. 15. Neal says Andrew Morris has become the backup to the backup, and Morris was rocked in spring training. 16. The hosts widen the conversation to league-wide pitching trends, including max-effort throwing and pitchers adding five, six, or seven pitches. 17. Smalley compares modern pitcher development with older eras, when pitchers refined two or three pitches instead of chasing extra velocity. 18. The tone is conversational and opinion-driven, with Roy and LaVelle trading baseball memories and practical judgments rather than formal analysis. 19. Listeners who follow Twins pitching, roster depth, and spring-training updates will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners looking for a game recap or a short injury note may skip it.

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