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 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 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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

1.  He’s rusty.  Lirano has shown some signs of regaining the form that he had in 2006 but for the most part he is missing his velocity and his slider.  As a pitcher, he needs to learn to trust his surgically repaired ligaments and feel comfortable throwing his fastball at 100%.  His slider is a different issue.  Control over breaking balls is very difficult.  He has shown this spring that he does not have the control over the slider that was the most devistating in the game.  His sliders are largely up in the zone and look more like a slow curve instead of having the dramatic breaking motion that it once had.  Spending time dominating Class A hitters will help him get important innings as well as get a feel for his pitches again.

2.  Confidence.  Liriano has always been a confident pitcher however with his coming back from Tommy John surgery he will need to continue to maintain the confidence that he had in 2006.  If he can work on his pitches and start to dominate the minors then Gardy will not have a hard decision to bring him up to the big show.

3.  Experience for other players.  The last thing the Twins want is to demote a pitcher who has pitched well in favor of someone who will sell Jerseys or tickets.  The Twins need to win in order for the fan base to be interested.  The residents of the upper mid-west are typically very bandwagon prone and if the Twins fall far out of the running early it will have an effect on the financial success this season.  Put someone in a position where they may win.  If that is Liriano fine, but if its not then let Liriano make his starts for the Miracle and lets have someone like Blackburn pitching.
All in all, I think that this is a good move several reasons.  I’m glad that they announced it today so that he can make a start prior to the regular season starting for the Miracle

Here is what I found on their performance thus far in Spring Training:

Gomez:  54ab/12r/15h/1hr/6rbi/26tb/10k/10sb/.293obp/.481slg/.278avg

Span:    39ab/6r/11h/0hr/2rbi/15tb/5k/3sb/.404/.385slg /.282avg

A few things stuck out from their spring training stats.

The first is slugging percentage.  Gomez has a much greater upside in this category.  When he does hit, he hits the ball for extra bases.  He doesn’t get a high percentage of singles.  He doesn’t have a ton of power however his speed allows him to easily get doubles and an even more exciting is his ability to get the triple.  In 15 hits he has taken third twice.

The second area that Gomez appears to have an advantage is in runs scored.  While Gomez does have more atbats, he score many many more runs.  So far this spring, Gomez is scoring at an amazing clip.  He’s been on base 17 times this spring and he’s scored 12 of those times.  Wow!

Not all of the stats go in favor of Gomez.  He does have a downside in that he doesn’t get on base all that often.  With guys like Mauer, Morneau and Cuddy batting behind him you would think that these guys will drive in runs.  Span is getting on base at a very high percentage.  He does this by primarily by working the count.  He has walked 7 times this spring.  This however is where stats become funny….  He has been on base 1 more time than Gomez (even with Gomez having a 15 atbat advantage) but has scored 6 less times.  There certainly is some variability in what causes players to score runs but when Gomez doubles Span’s run production it makes me think that there is something more to this than chance.

The next statistical advantage goes towards Gomez.  His RBI production has been decent considering his lack of hits.  He has 6 RBI to Span’s 2.  Gomez seems to thrive when men are on base or in scoring position.

The last statistic that really matters is pretty much a dead heat.  Span has a batting average of .282 with Gomez batting .278.

With these stats favoring Gomez, its no wonder why Gardy decided to take a calculated risk in starting Gomez.  With a on-base machine in Mauer likely batting in the #2 hole, it is likely that any ball through the infield will result in a run (as long as Gomez is on base).  The bottom line is this:  Gomez will mature with atbats.  He has the upside and while his strikeout to walk ratio is horrible, I believe that there will be many road games thsi year where our starting pitcher will be handed the ball with runs on the board.  That in itself will help the Twins out in a division where we need all the help we can get.

Carl Crawford.

This week during an interview he was asked about Delmon Young. Carl stated that he is sick of Delmon’s constant yapping and that he should “Shut up and play baseball”. He then went on to say that he would be glad to say that “to his [Delmon’s] face”. The reporters quickly relayed that information to Fort Myers where the Twins are holding spring training. Delmon failed to repspond.

Here’s the link: http://www.fannation.com/truth_and_rumors/view/40931

So this is what i’m wondering…. Why is Carl Crawford (and possibly more Devil Rays) so irritated with Delmon? We all know that he caused issues with the Rays but as of yet I have not heard one negative thing about his in the Twins camp. I’m hoping that his past doesn’t rear its ugly head!

All I know is that i’ll be watching with anticipation on April 16th when the Twins square off against the Rays. It could be a smackdown that I would NOT want to miss!

Have a great week everyone… I’m off to Mexico for a week. See you on March 21st!