A Deeper look at Liriano's season to date

Twins lost 3-1 to Boston but Swarzak navigated his way through 6+ innings pretty well.  Now Jim Souhan and Tom Powers are ready to kick Liriano out of the rotation!  

I know Liriano has struggled so far (2-6, 6.42 ERA)  but lets break it down a little.

In his 10 starts he has had 4 quality starts:

1. May 15th Against the Yankees in Yankee stadium where he only gave up 1 run in 6 innings, but everyone forgets that because we lost the game.  
2. May 4th Against Detroit he pitched into the 8th inning in a 7-2 win.  One of our 5 road wins to date.
3. April 28th Against Tampa he pitched 6 2/3 inning giving up 2 runs.
4. April 16th Against Toronto he gave up 2 runs (1 earned) in 6 innings but no one remembers cuz the bullpen collapsed and we lost 9 - 2 
   

He had 1 Ok start where the Twins were given a chance to win but not exactly a quality start:

1. Home opener(April 6)  vs. Seattle: he wasn't great, but 4 runs in 7 innings isn't horrible.
   

In all fairness that means he has had 5 poor starts... Of those he started the game well but gave up 1 or 2 crooked number innings with what I deem a mental lapse:

1. May 25th At Home vs Boston, 5 Runs in 4 Innings:  scoreless 1st 2 innings then 5 runs in next 2.
2. May 20th loss versus ChiSox where he pitched 3 scoreless solid innings then gave up a 7 run 4th.
3. May 9th  at Home vs. Seattle, 5 runs in 5 innings:  scorelss 1st 3 innings then 5 runs in next 2.
4. April 22nd loss versus ChiSox where he pitched 4 solid innings and then gave up 4 runs in the 5th.
5. April 11th in Boston ,  7 runs in 4 innings:  scoreless 1st inning then 3 straight crooked numbers

In most of these 5 bad losses he wasn't giving up "small ball" dink and dunk sort of hits, most of the runs are scored on HRs and doubles.  To me Liriano has too good of stuff to get hit that hard that much.  So why is it happening?  Mental lapses or lack of mental toughness when they get a guy or 2 on base, and there has been some quotes talking about him not locating his fastball.

Liriano when pitching well has 3 good pitches... fastball (low - mid 90s), slider (can still be knee buckling at times), and changeup which has been very effective when he is hitting his spots with his fastball.  

Liriano's past (the way he finished 2008 and his 2006 numbers) and his stuff (not as good as 2006 but still above average) warrants Gardy to give him a chance to rebound and get over his mental lapses.

Swarzak has pitched well and deserves consideration to stay in the majors but I don't believe that should be at the expense of Liriano's starting spot in the rotation, at least not yet.

Not Pretty but a Win

Last nights game versus the Red Sox wasn't pretty, but another quality start and W for Slowey and the lately resurging bullpen won the game for the Twins.  Denard was setting the table but with 14 LOB there wasn't a lot of clutch hitting.

Hopefully Swarzak can continue his good pitching from last start and the clutch hits happen for the Twins today in the finally against Beckett, no small task for the Twins hitters.

No worries about Road just something to prove

Ruesse's column talks about how the Twins have a heavy road schedule ahead, and how we haven't played well on the Road (5-14), also how the Twins didn't take advantage of red hot month of May by Morneau and Mauer.  All of this is easy to point out and one could argue that the Twins will be lucky to be 5 games under 500 by July 1st with such a heavy road schedule in June.  I have a different outlook.  

Break down the May road losses: 

1. Tigers 9-0 -- Blackburn has a rare poor outing and a rookie pitcher (no-one has a book on him) shuts down the Twins.
   
2. Orioles 4-1 --  Rain started and stopped (several times)  game that should have been postponed.
3. Orioles 5-4 -- Tough fought game with Mijares losing with run in bottom of 8.
4. Yankees 4 game sweep -- Tough fought games all 4 were close (3 Yankee walk-offs) - bullpen pitched a lot of innings and couldn't hold off Yankee hitters in homer friendly park.
5. White Sox 2 losses -- Buerle & Danks were good and Baker & Liriano stunk not getting into 6th putting even more stress on bullpen.

So the Twins in May were 2-9 on the road.  However one could argue they aren't playing all that poorly the 4 game sweep at the Yankees could have easily been 2-2 or even a 4-0 the other way... and the rain shortened joke of a game in Baltimore you might as well throw out.  The other Baltimore loss was a close hard fought game.

So I'm not making excuses for the Twins, they need to win on the road.  But if you really look at the month of May's road games we haven't played poorly just were unable to close out games in 5 of the 9 losses, another loss was a joke of a game, so in actuality only 3 of the 11 road games did the Twins play poorly.   Of the 5 close losses 4 were on the overworked bullpen and the other was the start of Perkins decline ending him in the DL.

Essentially the Twins bullpen needs to be clutch on the road, the starters have gone deeper into games lately giving the bullpen a bit of a reprieve,  that will need to continue so the fresher arms in the pen can be more effective.  

I am not overly worried about the Twins winning on the road, they have inter-league games coming up that they have historically been very good in.  Pitching will be the key, getting a minimum of 6 and hopefully 7 quality innings from the starters, and good pitching from Mijares, Guerrier, and Nathan.

2009 Twins to date

Since this is my first post with real content I thought I'd start with my thoughts on the 2009 Twins to date.

Pre-season 2009 

Here is a quick review of what my general thoughts were about the Twins heading into the season.

Strengths

1. Starting pitching  -  5 returning young solid starters from 2008
2. Defense  -  Gomez, Span, Cuddyer, Crede, Punto, Morneau, Mauer all good if not great defenders
   
3. Speed  -  Gomez, Span, Casilla, Punto use there speed to play "Small Ball"
4. Closer  -  Joe Nathan is rated by many as a top 5 closer in MLB

Weaknesses

1. Middle Relief Pitching -- Neshek and Reyes gone who will pitch 6th & 7th?
2. Hitting for Power  -  After Morneau, no one is a major power threat: Crede & Kubel considered OK.

2009 April & May reality

Its actually comical to look at that pre-season analysis and see how different it has played out so far.

We have been right about 1 Strength & 1 Weakness.   2 out of 6 in baseball terms isn't too bad ;)

Lets revisit each item:

Starting Pitching -- Only Mediocre definitely not a Strength

• Liriano (2-6 ERA:6.42) has been disappointing and can't locate fastball
• Baker (2-5 ERA: 6.52) was injured and had a very rocky start, starting to show improvement.
  
• Slowey (6-1 ERA: 4.23) has been OK and benefited from a lot of run support
• Blackburn (4-2 ERA: 3.55) has been Twins best pitcher, a solid middle of rotation guy.
• Perkins (1-3 ERA: 5.36) started really well but got no run support, but has struggled in his last several starts before landing on DL.

Defense -- Very Strong 

2nd fewest Errors in MLB!  Crede has been great, Punto has been Punto, Gomez & Span seem to track down everything in the outfield, even Delmon Young has played well defensively lately.   Morales and Redmond weren't great but held there own in April until Mauer returned.

Speed -- Mediocre at best

Small ball hasn't really happened like we like to draw it up, mainly because Punto, Casilla (when he was on the team) and Gomez haven't been on base!  Their horrid hitting has hurt our ability to play traditional Twins Small ball.  The lone bright spot has been Denard Span, who looked awful in spring training, has been hitting for average and drawing walks, he leads the team in stolen bases (with 10)

Closer -- Average

Nathan hasn't had a lot of work (18 appearances but only 9 save opportunities), but 22% of his saves chances have been lost, that isn't very Nathan like.  He hasn't looked dominating even when he gets the saves.  I'm not too concerned, Joe has underperformed to date, but hasn't had the regular work, so hopefully with regular opportunities he will get into a rhythm.

Middle Releif Pitching -- Poor

Ayala hasn't worked out too well, Guerrier had a bad April but has been markedly better in May.  Crain has been a headcase so far.  Mijares has been OK, but not as good as September last year, Dickey has probably been the only one I can actually say has been better than expected.

Hitting for Power -- Unbelievable!!!!

Morneau we expected to do well, but 14 HRs before the end of May is even better than we thought.  Mauer has only had 1 month but is already hit 11 HRs, where did this sudden power surge come from!?!?!   Cuddyer had a slow April but he is hitting well (8 HRs), Kubel had a better April and is slowed by a swollen knee.  Crede is also hitting it into the crowd (8 HRs).  5th most HRs in the majors as a Team!!

What To Look For in June

Twins need to get the bottom of the lineup to play small ball like they did last night for 1 inning versus Boston, so the big guys can clear them off the bases with all this new found HR power (again like Morneau did last night).  If they can do that the team speed will start to show through.  Starting pitching needs to improve and get into the 7th Inning to keep workload down on guys like Guerrier and Mijares so they can be more effective when they do pitch.

Go Twins!

Welcome

This blog is the rants, raves, opinions, and various other thoughts of mine about Major League Baseball's Minnesota Twins.

I'm a huge Twins fan with huge opinions.  I find myself commenting on alot of other Twins blogs.   So, I decided I need a central location for all my thoughts on the Minnesota Twins. 

I don't know how much it will be read, and for now I don't really care.  Its more for me than anyone.  Fell free to comment about how insane my thinking is, how brialliant I am, or anything in-between.