Do you remember May 13th?  That was the last time that the Twins were first place in the standings in the Americal League Central division.  Prior to this season, most media members and fans alike suggested that the Twins were in a rebuilding mode.  As the Twins took their place atop the division yesterday it seems only fitting that a team made up of rookies and newcomers would be paced by the most recent of callups.  Fransiscon Liriano.

It has been well documented that Liriano had a horrendous start to the 2008 season.  The Twins brought him up in April and in three games he had an 0-3 record and an ERA that made Livan Hernandez blush.   After his horrible start the Twins did the right thing and sent him down to Triple-A Rochester.  Over the last few months, Liriano was able to find his pitches and regain some of the mojo that he had during the 2006 season where he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball.

After yesterdays game Liriano stated that he was “nervous” in his return to the Metrodome.  Liriano went 6 full innings and while the boxscore showed that he was effective, it was apparent that he wasn’t exactly the same pitcher as he was in 2006.  His fastball topped out at 93 mph and his slider which in 2006 registered at 87 mph only reached 83mph.  The encouraging thing however is that his slider had what appeared to be just as much movement as it did in 2006.  We do not know what will ultimately become of Liriano.  We are all hopeful that he will continue to regain his velocity and have better control of the strike zone.

What was very apparent yesterday was that Liriano seemed to be a shot in the arm for the rest of the team.  While the Twins stood pat at the trading deadlne, Liriano’s return in favor of a struggling Hernandez might be the pickup that the Twins were looking for.

The Twins appear to continue their hot ways.  They are in the 4th inning at SafeCo field tonight and are up 6-0

Go Twins!

It’s time to dust off your Fransisco Liriano jersey.  The king lives and will soon be comeing to a ballpark near you.  Liriano has been deadly for Triple-A Rochester over has last 10 starts.  His stats are pretty impressive:  He’s 9-1 with a 2.51 ERA during stretch of time.  He will be replacing the the human hit machine, Livan Hernandez.  It’s well been documented that Livan’s numbers are horrible but it seems as if the Twins have finally decided to stop trotting him out to the mound when Liriano is sitting in AAA. 

The surprise move of the day is our parting ways with Craig Monroe.  While his batting average was atrocious, I did like the fact that he had some pop in his bat.  We will be replacing him with Randy Ruiz.  Ruiz’s numbers in Rochester are pretty impressive as well.  He’s batting .320 with 17 Homeruns and 68 RBI in 111 games.  I am glad that the Twins made this move because I think that it is time to give Ruiz (DH and backup 1B) a chance.  He’s proven himself this year and if the word on the street was that we were looking for a right handed hitter with pop, well, Ruiz just might be our guy.

Liriano could possibly start Monday nights game at Seattle.  Both Liriano and Ruiz are on their way to Minneapolis to join the team for tonights game. 

I’m frustrated. I’m very negative right now. I’m a Twins fan and as a result of that i’ve learned accept the fact that I live in a flyover state and that my team will always be stuck in mediocrity. Sure, the Twins have won 2 world series in my lifetime. Sure the Twins won division titles for 4 our of 5 years. Sure there are bright spots here and there. What frustrates me the most is that each time I think that the Twins are really in it to win it, I buy into the lie. I buy into the sound bites from team officials. I buy into the enthusiasm that Bert Blyleven, Dick Bremer, John Gordan and Dazzle spew game in and game out.

Each time the Twins get close, I buy it hook line and sinker. I am a fool. I am a dope. I am an idiot.

In the 2008 season, which all media and most fans would have said is a “rebuilding” year, the Twins have somehow become compeditive. I would have been fine with this being a rebuilding year (after all how could it not be when we lost Santana and Hunter to free agency). Team officials however have said over and over again that they are striving to still be compeditive and to ultimately win games in October.

After first half of the season and the maturation of the pitching staff, I started to believe that this year could be interesting. Maybe the Twins Nation would be in for something magical much like the ‘87 season. Maybe the Twins would play meaningful games in August and September.

All of those hope and dreams are now shattered. Today the Twins failed to make ANY moves that would benefit the team or help position themselves to be competitive with the White Sox or any other American League team. The Twins instead chose to stand pat and not fill any of the glaring holes that it has at 3rd base, 2nd base or late inning relievers. The Twins chose to watch teams like the White Sox, Red Sox and Rays make moves that will position themselves to compete. After all, they recognize the fact that in order to get something you have to give something.

Unfortunately that is NOT the philosophy of the Twins organization. The Twins would however choose to ride out their season with Adam Everett, Boof Bonser, Nick Punto, Matt Macri and Brendan Harris at key positions.

Billy Smith stated today in a press conference that they were willing to “take on payroll” but as such did not want to give up any of our 4 starting pitchers (Slowey, Blackburn, Perkins or Baker). While I understand their hesitation to do this, it also infuriates me even more. The Twins have long been able to find and develop pitchers in the minor league system because after all pitching and defense wins games. The problem is that the twins front office becomes infatuated with their players. The organization doesn’t want to part ways with all the boys that they have sculpted into men. So instead of trading a guy that is EASILY replaceable by the next guy that Rick Anderson could make into a quality pitcher they choose to do nothing.

As a result, please let me be the first to announce to the Twins Nation that our favorite team has officially waved the white flag. The WhiteSox have an embarrasment of hitting riches and the Twins will be starting guys like Everett, Punto, Bonser, Macri and Harris.

I’m tired of all of this.

I attended last nights game against the Brewers.  The game was very exciting and the back and forth nature made the game was everything that I could ask for in a game.  I want nothing more than to be able to go to a game that is compeditive and to see the Twins win!

A few observations from the game:

1.  The crowd:  I was pretty dissappointed in the crowd.  Considering that there were thousands of Brewers fans at the Dome, I was shocked to hear that the game attendance barely eclipsed the 30,000 mark.  How could a team that has won 9 straight games (not to mention the border states rivalry) draw so few fans?  Is it the economy?  Do people really have less interest in the Twins than in previous years?  I don’t believe that the economy is playing a big part in attendance numbers.  Certainly there are people who have to choose how to spend their dollars but historically this has been a series that drew more fans.  The only solution that I can think of is this:  I believe that the normal Twins fan is a casual fan at best.  These are the types who will “cheer” for the Twins when they are winning or when they have big name players with a national presence.  The loss of Hunter and Santana certainly kept some of the fans away from the ballpark.

2.  Nick Blackburn’s performance last night was confusing.  For much of the game it looked as if he was dominant.  He had 5 strikeouts in 4 innings but yet somehow gave up 4 home runs.  Two of the homeruns were on 3-2 pitches.  He will likely be working with Rick Anderson this week to come up with a better approach for these situations.

3.  Joe Mauer’s 9th inning heroics occured after he had fouled off 5 consecutive pitches from Mota.  Mota’s pitches were registering in the mid-to-upper 90s.  Mota’s pitch that Joe sent 416 feet to straight away center field was a horrible mistake.  The count was 0-2 when that pitch was crushed.

4.  Alexi Casilla continues to excite me.  His bunt attempt down the first baseline was awesome.  The way that he was able to avoid the tag from first baseman Fielder was about an athletic move as i’ve seen on the basepaths in some time.

5.  Joe Mauer has 3 homeruns in the month of June.  He also had a ball go off of the base of the fence earlier in the game.  It seems as if he’s hitting his power stoke a little more than earlier in the season.  I expect that his homerun totals will start to climb.  I see him as being a 10-15 homerun kind of guy.

Tonight the Twins will meet the Brewers again.  The twins will be looking for their 11th straight win which would tied their longest win record since 2006.

Go Twins!

The Twins continued their rollercoaster ways today by taking the last game of a three game series against the Washington Nationals.  This after the Twins took 2 of 3 from the Brew Crew last weekend.  It seems as if the Twins can not make up their minds…  It’s either feast or famine with this club.  One day the team will score 7 runs and the next day they will be shut out by a mediocre pitcher.  I suppose that I should learn to forgive the ballclub.  Some will say it has to do with their lack of experience.  Others will say that the team is inconsistent at best.  My personal opinion…..i’m not sure what the deal is.  I do know that the team seems to be compeditive and they have been scoring many more runs than previous seasons, however considering the type of pitching that they have had this year it keeps me up all night to think that this team is just 1 game over the .500 mark. 

The optimist in me wants to think that if this team could put it all together that something good could happen.  Unfortunately, the pessimist in me can only think of the dr. jeckel and hyde complex.  I keep on wondering when the next 6 game losing streak will come….

Last night Livan Hernandez improved to 6-1 on the season with a solid pitching performance.  After an unsettling first inning where Manny being Manny hit his 498th career homerun, the Twins were able to get out of the inning only surrendering 3 runs.  After the first inning, Livan had much better control over his pitches.  He continued to use his ability to control the strike zone by painting the corners and using his off-speed pitches.  The Sox were off balance as a result for the rest of the game.  Livan pitched 6 innings while giving up just the three runs in the first.  He scattered 10 hits and allowed the Twins to scratch their way back in the game.  Unlike the game on Mothers Day, the Twins used small ball to score their 7 runs.  Only one of their hits was an extra base hit.  That was a double by Craig Monroe in the fifth inning. 

Last night, Livan stole the show with his ability to keep the score down after the horrible first inning.  The Twins offense has been the real story over the last two weeks.  The key change in the offense has been the emergence of their newly acquired players. 

Craig Monroe is batting .333 (10-for-30) with two doubles, three homers and nine rbi in his last nine games…he has six rbi in his past two games and collected his fourth multi-rbi game of the season.

Delmon Young has hit safely in six of his last seven games, hitting .348 (8-for-23) in that span.

Mike Lamb finished the series with five hits in 12 at-bats with four rbi.  Over the last 12 games her is hitting .316 (12-for-38) with seven rbi.

In order for the Twins to compete over the full season, it will be very important to have good pitching and timely hitting.  May has been a great month as a result of the team finally starting to gel. 

While the Twins have problem areas, their early season success (and equal failure by teams like Cleveland and Detroit) give me optimism that they can continue to win games and be competitive with any team in the American League.

Dan Gaudin is the second coming of Tom Glavine…  Well, not really but last night it looked as if he would be a 300 game winner.  Gaudin had no problems finding his spots as he painted corners and used his slider to keep the Twins batters out of sync.  Once again the 2008 version of the Minnesota Twins looked off balance and were unable to hit anything that came there way.  For each well hit ball there were two at-bats where the hitter was flailing at Gaudin’s slider.  As a result the Twins grounded out 11 times including one double play in the first inning by Matt Tolbert. 

Boof Bonser once again lacked control of his pitches.  From the very start of the game he was struggling to get his fastball over the plate and as a result he ended up walking 4 batters while striking out just 2 in 6 innings pitched.  He now falls to a 1-4 record on the season and while he didn’t have his best game he certainly kept the game within reach despite two of his four walked batters scoring.

The goat of last nights game goes to Craig Monroe.  He struck out twice and failed to make something happen with two outs in the 7^th inning.  He came to the plate with 2 outs and runners on second and third.  He flied out weakly to the shortstop to end the rally.   

The Twins offense continues to sputter and the power that we all thought that they’d have remains to be seen.  Tonight the Twins will attempt to come away with the series when they send Francisco Liriano to the mound.  This will be Liriano’s 3^rd start and he will once again work to remove the rust that has plagued him so far.

It’s about time…  Last night Craig Monroe gave us a glimpse of what he has historically been able to do at the plate.  Monroe had a very good night with 3 RBI including a double and a homerun.  The season thus far has not been kind for Monroe.  Prior to yesterday’s game he was batting a paltry .222 with 3 doubles, 3 RBI and 10 strikeouts. 

After the game, Ron Gardenhire was asked about his decision to start Monroe in the lineup.  He stated that Monroe had a career batting average of .667 versus Joe Blanton.  While numbers can lie, sometimes batters pick up the ball batter against certain pitchers.  Gardy’s statistical gamble paid off last night with Monroe leading the Twins to victory. 

While Monroe seems to be heating up his bat after a slow start, the Twins have greatly improved this year while platooning Jason Kubel and Monroe at the DH spot.  They have combined to hit 4 homeruns and knock in 18 RBI while hitting .276 in just 28 games.  That is a great increase over their production from that position last year.  They are on pace to hit 25 homeruns and around 115 RBI.  While those RBI numbers are probably inflated, anything near these numbers would be a great improvement over last years squad.  The DH position last year accounted for a .269 average with only 10 homeruns and 74 RBI.

The Twins are sitting with a 10-10 record and currently in second place in the AL Central.  They trail the Chicago White Sox by 1.5 games and will look to extend their 3 game winning streak tonight against the Athletics.  We will be sending Boof to the mound. 

The Twins have an off day today… The Twins will need to cherish this day — their next day off will be in a week when the Twins finish a 6 game road trip that includes the Oakland Athletics and the Texas Rangers.

Given the Twins current 9-10 record, Twins faithful can be fairly optimistic during these next 6 games. For the most part this season, our ballclub has navigated its way through what would typically be considered a tough schedule. If the Twins would have found a way not to blow those two games last week against the Tigers, their record would be 11-8. That would be VERY respectable considering that they had played the Angels, White Sox, Tigers and Indians. Three of those four teams will have a strong shot of making a playoff push this fall.

The next 6 games are winnable for the better than expected Twins. If the Twins can take both of these series, they could end their road trip with a 15-9 record which would be MUCH better than most of the talking (blogging) heads would have thought.

The first month of this season has been very interesting. A few thoughts on the progress thus far:

1. Starting Pitching - This has been much better than I would have anticipated. Livan Hernandez has shown that he does have something left in the tank and Scott Baker has been reliable. The biggest surprise has been the emergence of Nick Blackburn. He has been very sharp in his first 4 starts. While his record doesn’t seem special, he has lowered his ERA to 2.49 runs/game. He now leads the Twins in this category.

2. Power? We don’t need no stinkin’ power! - Only 9 homeruns…. If Harris wouldn’t have hit one yesterday, the only guys who sniffed a four bagger have been named Morneau and Kubel…

Delmon Young? Where you at!
Craig Monroe? Where you at!
Joe Mauer? Enough with the singles…Where you at!

Eventually we’ll need some help from the long ball if we’re to be successful. It’s very hard to manufacture more than a couple runs a game by playing small ball all the time. Someone step up and get the big hit.

3. Go-Go-Gomez - Who thought that you could go on a bunting “slump”. Gomez started out the season on fire. He was changing games with his speed and bunting ability. During the last two weeks however he has been HORRIBLE in that part of the game. He appears too eager to start running down the first base line and as a result is stabbing at the baseball. I’m waiting for Gardy, or Joe Vavra to get through to him that he doesn’t need to rush his bunts. He’s the fastest man in baseball and as long as he gets it past the pitcher he will be successful in his bunt attempts. Nothing is more deflating to see a guy not do the fundamentals when that is all he needs to do to be successful.

4. Utility players - Tolbert and Harris have been great. It seems as if they are always on base and causing issues. They both have that ability to be like David Eckstein used to be… Always finding a way to piss of the opposing team.

Overall i’m optimistic. I know that our chances to win the division or make the playoffs are slim to none but thus far the Twins have been entertaining and if we’re really building for 2010, I like what I see.

It’s a cool and clowdy day in Minneapolis. This afternoon i’ll be making my trek across downtown to the Metrodome. I chose to attend todays game for a few reasons:
#1 - DQ Hat Day… The first 20,000 fans will be getting one of these:

They typically are not great hats but I kind of dig the old skool retro look. Hopefully I’ll be one of the lucky fans!

#2 I really want to see Nick Blackburn pitch. Everything that I have seen so far from him has been impressive. Although his record (0-1) does not reflect his dominance he has shown that he can compete at the big league level. He has pitched 17 2/3 innings while striking out 11 and walking 3. His ERA prior to todays game is 3.57 which ranks second on the team to Livan Hernandez who has a 3-0 record and a 3.00 ERA.
Hopefully Blackburn can out duel Jarrod Washburn of the Indians. The Twins have had a rough start the season while only winning 4 of their last 10 games (which they are currently riding a 2 game losing streak). With the sudden resurgence of the Detroit Tigers, a loss today puts the Twins at risk of owning the cellar of the American League Central.