Hitting the Foul Pole

If I said the Twins were sputtering out of the gate, my car would sue me for libel. As a quick example, here’s the home run leaderboard so far in the season:

• Troy Tulowitzki: 5
• Nelson Cruz: 5
• Howie Kendrick: 4
• Alex Rodriguez: 4
• Miguel Cabrera: 4
• Ryan Braun: 4
• Asdrubal Cabrera: 4
• Lance Berkman: 4
• Ian Kinsler: 4
• Mark Teixeira: 4
• Pat Burrell: 4
• Alfonso Soriano: 4
• Jorge Posada: 4
• Prince Fielder: 3
• Jose Bautista: 3
• Jonny Gomes: 3
• Logan Morrison: 3
• Paul Konerko: 3
• Ryan Howard: 3
• Russell Martin: 3
• Alexei Ramirez: 3
• Justin Upton: 3
• Jason Heyward: 3
• Chris Young: 3
• Rickie Weeks: 3
• Rod Barajas: 3
• Josh Willingham: 3
• Torii Hunter: 3
• Brian Roberts: 3
• Adrian Beltre: 3
• The Minnesota Twins: 3

Sorry about making that list so long. Don’t blame me, blame the Twins. They are currently the worst offensive team in the league, having amassed -0.5 WAR on offense thus far in the season. They are the second worst pitching team in the league, with 0.1 WAR. As a team, they’re hitting .236/.283/.506, for a batting line that would get a backup catcher sent down the minors.* Every day, the Twins’ fans debate on Twitter whether it’s time to panic or whether it’s just a small sample size.

* Except, of course, if you’re the Twins’ backup catcher. I’m beginning to suspect that Joe Mauer’s contract includes a secret clause that says the Twins can’t have an adequate backup for him, thus explaining Drew Butera’s continued existence. I call it the Joe Mauer Must Look Good Clause.

But on Thursday night, that was supposed to change. They took their league-worst offense and faced off against the second worst offense, the Rays (-0.3 offensive WAR). Carl Pavano was on the mound, with his personal caddy behind the plate, Drew “Make Mauer Look Good” Butera. And Pavano didn’t disappoint — last week he dominated the anemic A’s offense, giving up 1 run in 8 innings. This week, he dominated the Rays’ offense, giving up 0 runs in 8 innings. He’s doing what he can to silence those pesky complaints about his contract.

And to top it off, Pavano struck out 7 batters in his 8 innings, re-trading ground balls for strikeouts upon realizing that the Twins’ infield defense can’t field balls hit directly at them and can’t move at all. (Michael Cuddyer started at second base, again.) Unfortunately for Pavano, and the Twins, Pavano doesn’t know how to win. Eight scoreless innings is only a good performance if the bullpen can finish off the win.

Pavano left the game with a 2-0 lead — the Twins had finally broken through in the 6th inning, characteristically leaving the bases loaded — and Nathan took over the mound. You know that saying from football, that if you have two Quarterbacks, you really have zero? Well, the Twins are apparently trying to see if the same is true of Closers. With one out, Nathan induced Felipe Lopez to pop up to shallow right field, and the ball hung in the air for what seemed like minutes — and was enough time for Morneau and Hughes to get from the infield all the way out there to right field, just in time to convince Cuddyer (who had apparently been playing somewhere in the plaza beyond the fence in right-center after switching from second base) not to attempt to catch the ball. It dropped in for a double; apparently that was enough to rattle Nathan, who walked the next batter. After a coaching visit to the mound, Nathan did what all Twins pitchers do after receiving a visit to the mound: he got rocked for a game-tying double.

So Pavano’s effort was wasted, and Nathan had blown his first save of the year. For what it’s worth, it should be the first of many.

Not to be outdone, Matt Capps* took over the mound in the 10th inning with the lead newly replenished — by a potentially-game-winning single by Danny Valencia that made the score 3-2 — and did everything in his power to make sure he didn’t lose the race for most blown saves for the Twins this season. Just six pitches into his outing, he surrendered a walk-off home run to Johnny Damon, and the Twins got to hang their heads in shame once more.

* With all the whining about Mauer and Butera right now, is it cruel of me to point out that Wilson Ramos is currently hitting .450/.522/.550 right now? Yes, small sample size. Still, that OPS is double the Twins’ as a team. And by the way, I am never going to let Matt Capps live down the fact that he was traded for Wilson Ramos, in some sort of cosmic do-over of the AJ Pierzynski heist.

Entering Thursday night, the Twins hadn’t had many leads to protect, and neither Nathan nor Capps had blown a save. By the time the bartender of life cut off my MLB.tv feed, they’d each blown one. The bullpen is showing itself to be about as weak as everyone had feared it would be. The defense has somehow managed to be even weaker than everyone feared it would be. The starting rotation is currently having everything go wrong aside from injuries, which are surely right around the corner. And the offense, which was going to have to carry the load this season, well … remember the old saying that against a good offense you’d have to pitch around the first eight and pitch to the pitcher? Well, we’ve found the opposite of that. Against the Twins, the optimal strategy seems to be “pitch to everyone, while the fans cross their fingers and hope there isn’t a perfect game.”

No, it isn’t time to panic. It’s still early in the season, though the Twins seem to be doing what they can to skip over the summer doldrums right to the end-of-season slide, having picked up right where they left off. But it sure would be nice if someone would light a fire. Right now, it seems like they’re just going through the motions. And badly, at that.

The best thing that can be said about Thursday’s game — and possibly the worst thing that can be said about the season so far — is that, while the game ended in crushing defeat, at least it distinguished itself by being exciting. The same cannot be said for the rest of the Twins’ games so far, which have been mostly one-sided affairs filled with nothing but frustration, ineptitude, and boredom.

My question to you, the reader, is this: are you settling in for a long season to watch a surprisingly bad, boring team, or are you still hopeful* that they can turn it around and contend?

* And does the news that Mauer is on the DL change things?

Full count, two out. Nathan blew on his hand once, twice in the frigid night air. Thrice, and a fourth time. Jeter blew on his own hands, to warm them up. Time dragged on, slowing down as the end of the game approached with ever-decreasing inevitability.

At the beginning of the tenth inning, Dick & Bert were talking about Nathan’s lack of confidence in his fastball. But he’d been throwing a lot of them, especially as he lost command of his slider. He’d hit 91 MPH with the fastball a few times, but caught a lot of the plate and was fortunate that the Jeter of today isn’t the same Jeter that built the legend that bears that name, and he fouled them off.

The look on Joe Nathan’s face said he knew he was all alone out there. That he was nearly out of gas, and his fingers were cold, and help was not coming. That if Jeter reached base, he’d have to face a red hot Mark Teixeira representing the winning run. A walkoff home run literally loomed in the on-deck circle, especially considering Nathan’s chilled fingers and lack of command and diminished velocity.

Joe Nathan looked old. His beard, now, more white than anything else. It’s more shocking than it might have been, except that he hadn’t been seen for so long.

Five times, six, he blew into his right hand, desperate to warm up his fingers for one final attack. Seven. Nathan reared back, and he fired.

He’s accustomed to having plenty of gas, for situations like this. Mid-to-high 90s, the type of heat that keeps his hands warm and blows away good hitters and made him one of the best closers in the game. He knows, though, that that heat has cooled, that his gifts have left him. This fastball won’t have speed — Nathan knows he has to win a battle of wills against Derek Jeter.

A battle of wills against the Yankees has, for many years, been the Twins’ downfall. Too many times, they find themselves trailing the Yankees and the magic they have against, say, the White Sox, runs dry. I can’t pretend to know what the problem is, and I daresay nobody does. But like any hitter in the midst of a slump, all you can do is keep running out there and smashing your head against the bars of your cell until you find that one phony bar and break through and escape.

The fastball arrived at home plate, high, probably above the zone. Scouting reports have been saying for the last few years that Jeter is vulnerable to high fastballs, that he can’t hit them but can’t lay off them. This one arrived, and the radar read just 89 but it seemed like it was faster — Jeter swung late, and underneath, and he missed.

The game was over, and Joe Nathan had beat Derek Jeter. The score read 5-4, and the Twins had finally beat the Yankees. It hadn’t been long since they’d faced another dark hour, behind in the late innings in New York. But tonight, for just one night, the Twins had vanquished their pinstriped demons.

It’s just one win — perhaps the more important thing is that Nathan has taken the next step in his transition from dominant firebreather to wily old man. He’ll need to complete that transition to remain successful, unless his velocity returns. I don’t know if it will, but tonight’s save has to help Nathan’s confidence in a way that Sunday’s couldn’t.

And maybe this is just one of those things, that this apparent breakthrough doesn’t really mean anything — like Kubel’s grand slam against Mariano last year — but it sure feels great to steal a win from the maw of the Yankee beast.

Last night, Francisco Liriano turned in an adequate performance — 6 IP, 3 ER, 7 K, 3 BB — that isn’t going to help him convince anyone that he should be considered for the Cy Young. He struggled a bit with his command, but was hitting 97 MPH with his fastball and 90 MPH with his slider.

In my mind, there were two moments in the game that characterized who Liriano is as a pitcher and represent the arguments of those who say he’s clearly in the running as a great pitcher as well as those who say he simply doesn’t belong in the conversation.

The first of those moments came in the bottom of the 4th inning. After striking out Alex Rios, he gave up a fly ball by Paul Konerko that sailed to right-center field. Denard Span and Jason Kubel both cruised toward it, and neither of them made much of an attempt to catch it. Kubel “dove” for it (really, it wasn’t much of a dive, he just fell down in the direction of the ball at the last second, when he realized Span wasn’t going to try), while Span decided to “back up” the attempted catch by running in front of Kubel. When the ball predictably bounced right past Kubel, Span had to chase after it like so many embarrassed and flustered 9 year olds do every summer. Konerko stood at third base.

So after a botched defensive play, there was a runner at third and one out. This is the moment that defines greatness — you need to get out of this inning. Liriano proceeded to strike out Manny Ramirez; just a fly ball or a ground ball would have scored a run and surrendered a lead. He then struck out Carlos Quentin to end the inning, preserving the 0-0 score. That’s the sort of thing Cy Young winners do to win ballgames. This seems like the sort of moment that sticks out in the minds of people who want to see Liriano as a great pitcher.

The second pivotal moment occurred just the next inning. In the bottom of the fifth, Liriano found himself with men on first and third with one out, with Juan Pierre at the plate and long-time Liriano Killer Alexei Ramirez on deck. The best thing you can do in this situation is turn a double play.

Liriano managed to induce a weak ground ball off the bat of Pierre, but it came right back to him. Perhaps he was surprised, startled that he had to defend his position. After a moment of hesitation, he checked the runner at third and got the out at first. The replay showed that neither JJ Hardy nor Orlando Hudson covered second base, but Liriano wouldn’t have known that because he never looked. Maybe he didn’t trust either of them to make the throw to first base — they’ve struggled with that lately. Maybe he figured he could just get the next guy out, so he didn’t need to go for the two-fer. But maybe, and most likely, he just went blank in the heat of the moment; he froze, and momentarily forgot that he can get himself two outs, could escape the inning unscathed, could preserve his shutout.

And it seems to me that it’s these moments that stick out in the minds of those who want to see Liriano as a guy with good stuff who isn’t a big game pitcher, a guy they wouldn’t trust in Game 7, a guy who can’t be an Ace, and shouldn’t even be mentioned for a Cy Young award regardless of his numbers.

Not every Cy Young award winner has been Gold-Glove-worthy at defending his position, but Liriano won’t be able to silence his critics and convert his doubters unless he’s able to straighten out issues like these. For them, it’s not his defense that’s the problem — it’s his mind.

Is it possible for Liriano to fix that? Is steely composure in the face of adversity a skill, or a natural-born trait that can’t improve? Can he minimize the effects of that untrustworthiness, or is that one side of an immutable coin that’s essential to who he his?

Lately Bill Smith has been making solid moves to bolster the Twins’ chances at a playoff run this year, making it difficult for reasonable fans to criticize him without celestial bodies aligning to bring about an unforeseen situation that would require far more bullpen arms than even Wild Bill would be able to acquire.

Well, there must have been a syzygy of some sort last night, because last night’s 13 inning half-marathon showed just how frayed are the seams of the Twins’ bullpen. Coming into the game, Matt Capps and Brian Fuentes were known to be unavailable — Capps had just pitched two consecutive days, and Fuentes has a bad back for some reason.

So let’s take a look at what happened, shall we?

• Scott Baker pitched just two innings before leaving with elbow tendinitis — his return is unknown.
• Manship pitched well, leaving with a 3 run lead.
• Rauch pitched well too, leaving with a 4 run lead through 7 innings.
• Flores came in, despite the fact that he’d pitched in two consecutive games — but he’s not a Closer, so his arm doesn’t need to be protected. He got one out and gave up one hit, and his night was done after 7 pitches.
• Guerrier came in,* despite the fact that he’d pitched in two consecutive games — but he’s not a Closer, so his arm doesn’t need to be protected. He’s also been struggling through one of his patented dead-arm periods (which he got because he’s been pitching way too often). He got lit up, and by the time he left, the lead was gone.
• Crain came in, despite the fact that he’d pitched in two consecutive games — but he’s not a Closer, so his arm doesn’t need to be protected. He’s pitched well lately, but if there’s one thing Gardy loves doing to a guy who’s pitching well, it’s ride him until his arm falls off. So enjoy that, Crain. Oh, and Crain gave up a home run, and the last Twins lead of the night was gone.
• Having exhausted all the available options in the bullpen, the Twins went with the only strategy that made sense. Continuing to preserve a veteran Closer at the expense of young starters! Duensing came in despite having pitched on Tuesday. One day’s rest, baby! That’s never turned into a long term problem for a team in the past!
• Then they needed another pitcher, so finally they brought in — no, wait, never mind. They didn’t go to Capps. Instead, they went with Friday night’s starter, Nick Blackburn, who mercifully lost the game.

* Scott Ullger was managing at for the late innings, because Gardy had been ejected earlier in the game by Joe West, who continues to be very adamant that nobody can question any of his myriad terrible calls. I’m guessing Ullger was thinking, “What would Gardy do in this situation? I know! Put in Guerrier!” It worked about as well as you’d have guessed.

So the Twins managed to keep Fuentes and Capps out of the game, preserving the health of their pair of mercenary Closers at the expense of everyone else on the pitching staff, who have also been dramatically overworked in recent days. And if you noticed a pattern up there, I wouldn’t call you crazy. It seems like every pitcher in the bullpen has been used in every game — Gardy must have heard about this newfound vaunted bullpen depth, and forgot that it doesn’t really matter whether you have 3 guys or 8 guys if they’re all exhausted all the time. But it didn’t have to be this way, Smithers; no, it didn’t have to be this way at all.

Apparently, Gardy had been “begging” Bill Smith for bullpen help, made possible by the September 1 roster expansion. I don’t know exactly why Smith was reticent to do it, but here are two possibilities:

Possibility The First: Gardy said he’d been trying to get ahold of him for the last two days. So maybe Smith is simply incommunicado. If true, that’s pretty bad.

Possibility The Second: Bill Smith is waiting until the Rochester Red Wings season is over before taking away their most talented relievers. (I saw this a few days ago, but can’t find the link to it right now. Damn internet.) If this is true, and Smith values AAA wins as much as he values MLB-pennant-race wins, that’s really bad.

So basically, there wasn’t any excuse not to have more relievers in the bullpen. At least Slama and Burnett, maybe Perkins and Neshek and Swarzak. There are warm bodies waiting in AAA, and they could have been out in the bullpen last night if Bill Smith had called for them.

And, because Blackburn was wasted in relief the night before his scheduled start, the Twins needed to find another starter for Friday night. Who should they go with? Pavano? No, they won’t move him up a day. Swarzak? Too bad, he started on Wednesday. Perkins? Too bad, he pitched two innings in relief on Thursday.

Say hello to your Friday night starter: Matt Fox.

Who the hell is that?, I hear you asking. Well, good question. The Twins drafted him in the 1st round back in 2004, and here are his AAA numbers this year: 123 IP, 3.95 ERA, 7.6 K/9, 3.7 BB/9, 9.1 H/9, 1.2 HR/9. For what it’s worth, every single one of those peripherals has trended in the wrong direction at each level throughout the minors. His stuff just doesn’t play at the upper levels.

Put another way, Anthony Swarzak’s AAA numbers look like this: 231.1 IP, 4.28 ERA, 5.4 K/9, 2.8 BB/9, 10.0 H/9, 0.8 HR/9. So Fox has performed better than Swarzak, but Swarzak’s just 24 and still a prospect — Fox is 27 and on the brink of not being a prospect any more.

Matt Fox is 27 years old, doesn’t have much in the way of stuff, doesn’t have a track record of good performance in the minors, and is pretty clearly not a prospect. Good for him for making it to the majors.

But it took a whole lot of random, disconnected events all converging at once to get him this chance. Even if he makes the most of it, he probably won’t stick around.

So hopefully he enjoys himself while he’s here.

And hopefully Bill Smith has learned that he should never let this happen again.

Last night Liriano struggled a bit — but those struggles merely highlight why he’s having a better year than you’d think based on a glance at his superficial numbers.

Sure, he loaded the bases three times. But do you remember how he gave up his only run? On a squib-shot off the end of the bat of Pierzynski that went foul down the third baseline, spinning wildly to the left, which somehow managed to take an abrupt right turn and die in the grass in fair territory.

In other cases, the bases got loaded up when Delmon Young dropped a line drive that was basically right at him and Valencia made a bad throw to first on an attempted sacrifice bunt. How did he handle that one? By inducing an easy grounder back to himself which he threw home for a double play — but Mauer didn’t throw to first. So how did he handle that? By striking out Konerko and Quentin in impressive fashion to escape the inning unscathed.

It’d be easy for Liriano to fail in these situations, when his teammates aren’t giving him any help. But it’s a sign of a good, mature pitcher who can overcome that sort of adversity. He may not have racked up the strikeouts or gone deep into the game, but he showed what can only be called “grit.”

You may not be impressed by his 3.26 ERA, but what about his league-leading 2.14 FIP? Here’s an awesome little list of the league leaders in FIP over the last ten years:

• 2009: Zack Greinke (2.33)*
• 2008: Tim Lincecum (2.59)*
• 2007: Jake Peavy (2.84)*
• 2006: Johan Santana (3.04)*
• 2005: Johan Santana (2.80)
• 2004: Randy Johnson (2.30)
• 2003: Pedro Martinez (2.21)
• 2002: Pedro Martinez (2.24)
• 2001: Randy Johnson (2.22)*
• 2000: Pedro Martinez (2.17)*

* Cy Young Award winners

So … yeah. Leading the league in FIP tends to indicate that you’re a great pitcher having a great season.

And I think it’s worth pointing out that Liriano’s FIP is lower than all of those.

Francisco Liriano is one of the best pitchers in the league this season; if his defense would give him any sort of support (his league-high .349 BABIP indicates that they’re not), he’d have a lower ERA and would be able to pitch deeper into games, which would convince people that he’s actually doing well.

But you don’t need that to be convinced, do you?

The Twins leapfrogged the Tigers and reclaimed first place on Tuesday night.  As Tom Pelissero wrote last night, Nick Blackburn was just OK, and that was good enough.

The Twins “offense first” lineup did exactly what everyone expected them to do: score a boatload of runs.   Blackburn induced 12 groundouts, and more importantly he got a first pitch strike on 23 of the 29 batters he faced.  I’m not saying he has turned a corner and we don’t need another starter, but if our 3 headed monster of Baker-Blackburn-Slowey and be just OK, our offense should pick them up.  It seems that on that dreadful roadtrip (and for most of June) we were often down early, and the offense would either a) give up immediately or b) not wake up until it was 2 outs in the 8th and we are down 4.  Even Monday’s loss was encouraging in that regard because we started getting those first inning runs back pretty early.

Hopefully Slowey can follow in Blackburn’s footsteps and not get in an early hole, and keep the Tigers from scoring in bunches.  Hopefully the offense does the rest.

With one lightning-quick swing of the bat, Jason Kubel erased much of my frustrations from the past several days; with the Twins clinging to a two run lead that was seeming more and more assailable with each passing minute, Kubel launched a glorious drive deep to right center field, where it eventually disappeared into the twilight.

I’d hoped, at the time, that it had left the stadium altogether. I’ve been waiting for that to happen, and I figure there are three guys most likely to do it, in this order:

1. Morneau
2. Thome
3. Kubel

And for one fleeting moment, I thought Kubel had done it. I still don’t know exactly what happened to the ball, but from the way the replays show fans scrambling around back there it sure seemed like the ball had stayed in the park. Oh, well.

To answer all the griping by Twins players that they can’t hit a home run at Target Field, Kubel showed how to do it: just keep on hitting the ball harder until it goes out. He showed us again that his method works, by blasting a three-run homer later in the game to ice it, to let us all relax a little bit and enjoy the end of a game in which the Twins dominated the Yankees.

Throughout the game, but especially early on, the Twins’ luck was steadfastly doing everything it could not to change for the better. Of the first six outs the Twins made, four of them were made on rocket line drives right at a guy; still, the Twins were up 3-0.

I’d been trying hard, very hard, not to overreact to the Twins’ bad luck on balls in play over the weeks. Eventually, I assumed, the luck would turn and the Twins would finally start seeing some hits fall in and some balls go over the fence. But I cracked, and the frustration became too much to bear. That’s what happens, I suppose, when so many consecutive opportunities come up short. I’d begun to wonder if the Twins needed to change their approach, if they needed to get back to the style of offense that had worked for them in years past: get-em-on, get-em-over, get-em-in. Sure, the Twins are built for the long ball, are built for the big inning, are a team full of prodigious sluggers; but, I thought, it’s not working. It’s time for a change.

The players, though, did not see it that way; for that I’m glad. Rather than change who they are or how they’re supposed to play, the way they set about to overcome this unlucky BABIP streak was to just keep hitting the ball. It went into someone’s glove? Fuck it, hit the next one even harder. Javier Vazquez was basically just throwing batting practice to the Twins’ hitters; one line drive after another had a vapor trail, pieces of horsehide and bits of stitching were flying off the ball, again and again, as the Twins ripped them all over the field.

Sure, some still found a glove. Many did. But the line drives kept coming, and finally they were finding the gaps, they were bouncing off the wall, and they were flying far over the fence. It’s a great feeling.

Nick Nelson is a Twins blogger who does a much better job than I do of staying calm and balanced, and tends not to overreact to the daily slings and arrows. Yesterday, he posted an article in which he set up the 2008 Twins’ unnatural successes with RISP and compared them to the 2010 Twins’ mirror performance, bringing it home thusly:

So is this team, which includes many of the same players as that 2008 group, simply less clutch? No. It’s not like batters are stepping up and completely abandoning their approach at the plate in key situations — they’re striking out and walking with about the same frequency as would be expected. It’s what happens when the ball is put in play that is killing them; the 2010 Twins’ overall batting average on balls in play (BABIP) is .305, but with runners on second and third that drops to .190. With the bases loaded, it drops to .175.

Compare that to the 2008 squad which saw its overall .316 BABIP shoot up to .332 with runners in scoring position. Their BABIP with runners on second and third was .351; with the bases loaded, .324. In ’08, batted balls would consistently find a place to land in big spots. This year, in key run-scoring opportunities, line drives are continually falling into outfielders’ gloves and hard-hit grounders are turning into double plays rather than seeing-eye singles.

If you recall, at the time we were all trying to figure out if the Twins actually were better at hitting in the clutch than most other teams; after all, Gardy loves to practice situational hitting, and emphasizes getting the run in. Maybe it actually works? We were defending the Twins against the more impartial analysts who insisted that those BABIP numbers were simply too high to continue. Well, the Twins’ good luck on balls in play lasted all season — it did eventually regress back to normal, but it took a long time. The same thing very well could happen again.

But today is not a day to worry about the BABIP Bogeyman coming to get us. Today is a day to bask in all those line drives, and in those two long home runs. To feel good about a dominant 8-2 victory over the Yankees. To find out if we really do feel good about going 2-4 against the Yankees this year, a vast improvement over previous seasons. To chuckle at Yankees fans who are ready to meet Javier Vazquez at the airport with torches and pitchforks.

Yesterday, I offered up a solution to the Twins woes — rush a prospect through the system in hopes of sparking the offense and giving the outfielders some much-needed rest. It wasn’t exactly my proudest moment.

Then, last night, the Twins offered up a solution of their own — just keep smashing the ball, harder and harder, until the runs finally come.

Their solution is much more satisfying. Now here’s hoping they keep it up through the weekend.

On a night where the offense wasn’t clicking, despite making Justin Masterson work, Slowey held the Indians in check and the Twins took advantage of several Cleveland miscues.

I was really impressed with the way Slowey pitches tonight.  He was hitting all his spots, had an outstanding strike to ball ratio, and didn’t walk a single batter.  He seemed to be hitting all of his spots, and his only mistake was a bad pitch to Hafner.  We couldn’t really ask for a better start out of him.  Ideally Liriano was taking notes, so he now has a good idea how to attack this Cleveland lineup on Wednesday night.  I’m happy Gardy didn’t send Slowey back out for the ninth just to get him a complete game.  His pitch count probably could have handled it (he was at 98 after 8), but with the heart of the Indians order coming up, why risk it?  Duensing wasn’t messing around either.  He came in for the ninth and just fired in strikes to the 3-4-5 hitters for Cleveland.  He threw 11 pitches, 9 for strikes.  The team totals were 109 pitches, 79 for strikes.  72%! That is insane. Hopefully Slowey (and the rest of the staff) can build off this.

On the offensive side of things, the picture isn’t as rosy.  The offense loaded the bases several times, again, and failed to do much of anything.  We did manage to score three times on one such occassion, without a hit.   I shudder to think what our team batting average with the bases loaded is.  The sample size isn’t really small either, we’ve had the bases juiced a lot.

Mauer failed to reach base for the first time since last September.  A grand total of 35ish games.  Pretty impressive.  

Not a bad win, I really like that the Twins longest losing streak of the season is one game.  If we can avoid losing back to back games for the rest of the year, that would be great. What? You say that is impossible? Well, nobody asked you.

Tonight is Liriano vs. David Huff.  It is also apparently Xcel energy light bulb night.  Why don’t they just make it nickle beer night while they’re at it. #StupidPromotions

I have a ton of pictures from the game yesterday and will give them their own post sometime tonight.  Here are some thoughts on the new park

• It is awesome.  Everything you have read/heard is true. Sightlines are great.
• I saw Frank Viola and Jack Morris wandering around.
• I rode in an elevator with Larry Fitzgerald, he is a large man.
• The Target mascot, bullseye, was sitting in a nearby section.  He literally had the best seat in the park.

I didn’t get a chance to do much wandering.  This was on purpose because I figure everyone else will be doing the same, and I know I will be back soon.  I’ll wait for everyone else to get it out of their system, before I take time to wander aimlessly.

Lost (to some) in the chaos of the “opener”, was that the Twins won and looked damn good doing so.  I was excited to have Pavano start because I didn’t think he would be affected by the hoopla surrounding the game.  He didn’t “grow up” as a Twin, so this probably wasn’t as big a deal to him as it would have been to Baker or Slowey.  The offense continues to click, and Jon Rauch looks good enough as the closer.  All these things can be qualified with “for now”

I’ll post again with some pictures.  I took about 70 and was too tired last night to sift through them all, and pick the ones I wanted to upload.  So stay tuned for that, and leave your thoughts on Target Field or the game in general in the comments.

Baseball is a funny game. Before yesterday’s game, I’d written an article about Delmon Young; the premise was that he’d been given the starting job in LF, and it was his even if he had a bad night at the plate. He’d said that it felt good to know that even if he went 0-4, he’d be in the lineup the next night; that helps you relax, and perform better. It’s the same thing Cuddyer said during his breakout season in 2006, when he was given RF. I’d written about the fact that as soon as Delmon suffered his first 0-4, Gardy was quick to bench him, and that I didn’t like it; I hoped that Gardy had explained to Delmon that it wasn’t a benching as much as just trying to get Thome more plate appearances and getting Delmon some rest. Even in the article, I worried that I was overreacting.

Thankfully, I didn’t post the article. Because when they actually played the game, everything worked out perfectly, as if it were exactly what Gardy had had in mind when he sat Delmon out.

The Twins offense looked pretty impotent until the 5th inning, when a Thome double and a Kubel single started a rally (which ended with a Harris homer). Later, Thome blasted a 3-run homer to widen the margin to 6-1 and effectively put the game away. Delmon came in as a defensive replacement* and then, get this, in his only plate appearance he hit a 3-run homer of his own.

* I wonder how many times this year Delmon will come in as a defensive replacement. Isn’t it odd that the Twins apparently plan to use 2009′s worst defensive outfielder as a regular late-inning defensive sub? On one hand, if your defensive replacements come in and jack home runs in the ninth inning, you’re doing something right. On the other, it seems to mean you’re a little short on talented defenders. I think it’s worth paying attention to this year.

So, in the end, I’m glad I didn’t post that article before the game started. I’d have looked quite the fool.

And the Twins won 10-1, bludgeoning the Angels into submission with three more home runs. The offense is performing tremendously, despite the fact that they’re getting essentially zero production from the top two spots in the lineup. Twins fans have been able to say that before, of course, but this time there’s a big, big difference: we can reasonably expect that Span and Hudson will start hitting better at some point. Probably soon. And that makes it more likely that the team will continue its torrid run-scoring pace even if this crazy home run pace slows down. (And if it doesn’t slow down, oh boy, the Twins are going to score a lot of runs.)

The Twins are 3-1 now, and have won a series in Anaheim for the first time in what seems like ages. The starting pitching has been a pleasant surprise, the offense has lived up to expectations, and the bullpen has shown some resilience to losing Nathan.

But all those things are meaningless, because there’s another game starting tonight, and what they’ve done so far has no effect on what they’ll do next. Baseball is a funny game that way.