Start of Something Better?

Though his velocity is still not quite where it was last year, Francisco Liriano took a major step forward last night against the Mariners, striking out 9 batters while only walking one. Granted, yes, it was the Mariners, whose offense is pretty much triple-A level, but the major takeaway I'm seeing is that Liriano's control was improved, which really is the key to his success. Here are a few other highlights:

- 65% of his pitches were strikes (72/110)
- He threw first pitch strikes to 17 out of 26 batters-faced
- He tallied 18 swinging strikes (16.3%) which is a vast improvement over the 10.9 swinging strike percentage he has averaged so far this year
- Induced 7 groundball outs vs. 5 flyball outs which means he was keeping his pitches down

Over his last three starts, Liriano has a no-hitter, a 3-hitter (last night) and one dud game in which he was pulled early due to illness. His ERA over 19 innings so far in May is 2.37 compared to an April ERA of 9.13. I'll need to see a couple more quality starts to say for sure, but it looks like Liriano is slowly settling in and I think his start last night could be the start of a good run for him.

In other news, Joe Mauer is headed to Ft. Meyers for extended spring training which is a positive sign. Though no timetable has been set for his return, the fact that he is moving his rehab there suggests that he is getting much closer to playing in some minor league games. Jim Thome and Tsuyoshi Nishioka are also down at Ft. Meyers and by all accounts, both of them are progressing well...it would be a boon to the Twins offense to have all three of them return...hopefully they will all be back soon.

Michael Cuddyer is having himself a pretty good May so far. In 49 May at-bats, he is hitting .327/.400/.408 with a healthy 8:6 K:BB ratio. Meanwhile Danny Valencia's "season of regression" continues. After hitting just .217/.294/.315 in April, he has followed that up with an equally poor May (so far), hitting .220/.304/.340. Despite an excellent 18:16 K:BB ratio, Valencia simply isn't getting as "lucky" this year, watching his BABIP drop from .345 last year to .231 so far this season. Basically, for as lucky as he was last year, he has been equally unlucky so far this year...

This stretch in the Twins schedule might be a good place to turn things around. Tonight they start a two-game series at Oakland, then it's off to play 3 with the Arizona Diamondback (18-23), before coming home to play 3 more against the Mariners and Angels. After that the Twins have a slew of division games against Detroit, Cleveland and KC. Here's to hoping anyway...

Our Only Hope: The Law of Averages

Ok, I'll be honest, "law of averages" is a meaningless term. But right now this Twins team is so bad that we all need something to put our hope in, and this is the route I have chosen to go. I thought to myself, "ok, the Twins have been bad, as a whole, but how well would they have to perform to get back to their respective career averages by season's end?" Naturally that won't happen in every case, but it will in a few and so that can give us hope that yes, this team will improve. I'll start from the top of the order, give you their current hitting line, give you their career averages based on the stated number of PAs/ABs, and project what their hitting line and production-level would need to be to meet their career averages. I will clearly state how many PAs and ABs I expect them to have at the end of the year, obviously making the assumption that they will stay healthy for the rest of the season. I'm not bothering to project Slugging % because I don't have that much time.

1.) Denard Span - CF (700PAs/600ABs) - 150-160 games played
Current line: .284/.339/.367   13Rs   6RBI   1HR   2SB
Career line: .288/.365/.390    90Rs   63RBI   5HRs   24SB
Future line: .289/.370             77Rs   57RBI   4HRs   22SB

2.) Alexi Casilla - SS (540PAs/500ABs) - 120-130 games played
Current line: .190/.257/.286   10Rs   3RBI   0HRs   2SB
Career line: .246/.303/.324    60Rs   42RBI   4HRs   15SB
Future line:  .254/.313            50Rs   39RBI   4HRs   13SB


3.) Joe Mauer - C (500PAs/440ABs) - 115-120 games played
For Mauer, I'm making the assumption that he returns within the next 2-3 weeks...if that's not the case then obviously you have to adjust these numbers, but 2-3 weeks sounds reasonable at this point.
Current line: .235/.289/.265   2Rs   4RBI   0HRs   0SB
Career line: .326/.406/.479    65Rs   70RBI   6HRs   2SB
Future line: .333/.413             63Rs   66RBI   6HRs   2SB

4.) Justin Morneau - 1B (600PAs/540ABs) - 135-145 games played
Current line: .225/.287/.338   6Rs   9RBI   1HR   0SB
Career line: .284/.356/.507   80Rs   95RBI   24HRs   1SB
Future line: .296/.370            74Rs   86RBI   23HRs   1SB


5.) Jason Kubel - RF/DH (585PAs/535ABs) - 140-150 games played
Current line: .354/.406/.510   11Rs   10RBI   2HRs   1SB
Career line: .274/.338/.465    75Rs   90RBI   23HRs   1SB
Future line: .257/.322             64Rs   80RBI   21HRs   0SB

6.) Delmon Young - LF (575PAs/525ABs) - 130-140 games played
Again, with Young I'm assuming his stay on the DL is not an extended stay and that he'll return to the lineup in 1-2 weeks.
Current line: .228/.286/.281   3Rs   6RBI   0HRs   1SB
Career line: .291/.324.431     76Rs   91RBI   16HRs   7SB
Future line: .298/.327             73Rs   85RBI   16HRs   6SB

7.) Michael Cuddyer - Utility (650PAs/575ABs) - 150-160 games played
Current line: .226/.287/.355   8Rs   4RBI   3HRs   2SB
Career line: .269/.341/.448    86Rs   81RBI   20HRs   6SB
Future line: .277/.351             78Rs   77RBI   17HRs   4SB

8.) Danny Valencia - 3B (600ABs/550ABs) - 155-160 games played
Current line: .211/.292/.305   8Rs   13RBI   2HRs   1SB
Career line: .287/.336/.414    55Rs   77RBI   13HRs   5SB
Future line: .303/.343             47Rs   64RBI   11HRs   4SB

9.) Random Player - 2B/SS
With Nishioka coming back eventually, and this role being shared by Drew Butera, Luke Hughes, etc, etc., it's pretty meaningless to try and project this slot in the lineup. Most of the guys who fill the 9-hitter role for the Twins don't have enough Major League at-bats to give us a reliable career-average.

So what does all this mean? It means that most of the Twins regulars, aside from Span and Kubes, are going to have to play above their heads (in some cases way above their heads), just to finish with an average year. 27 games (the number the Twins have played so far) represents about 17% of the total 162 game schedule. In some cases (Morneau, Cuddyer, Mauer) these guys are going to have to fit 90% of a year's production into just over 80% remaining on the season....and I haven't even touched the pitching!

I assume there are other people out there who listen to Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio in the morning and every Tuesday morning they have Jayson Stark who is a baseball guru and loves stats and baseball history. Anyway, they were talking about the Twins and White Sox this morning, and it was mentioned that the Twins are 10 games out before 30 games have been completed. According to Elias (via Stark) only 3 teams in baseball history have ever won the division after trailing by 10 or more through 30 games. Only 1 (!) team in the modern-era has done it, and that was the 1987 Tigers. I'll never stop hoping as a Twins fan, but things are getting serious now, to the point where if they don't turn around soon, we'll be looking at a fire-sale come July...mark my words, you heard it here first. At least 7/9ths of the lineup are performing far below their career-averages...and we've said for awhile now "ah, it's going to turn around soon" and it hasn't. Now would be a great time to start...I'd love to hear a bunch of "dad-gummit's" from Hawk Harrelson this week.

Sputtering Offense Not a Surprise...

When Tsuyoshi Nishioka went down with a broken leg last Thursday, Ron Gardenhire was left with some interesting decisions to make with regards to his daily batting lineup. The result? Mauer in the 2-hole, Morneau in the 3-hole and Delmon Young batting cleanup. The result on the field...a stagnant offense and 6 runs in three games over the weekend. Though none of the Twins' players are hitting particularly well, I believe a lot of blame for that fact can be placed on this very odd lineup that Gardenhire has put together. There was no better example of that than today's game in which Morneau was 3-for-4 and yet drove in only one run (on a ground-out mind you) because the hitters in front of him, Mauer and Span, went a combined 2-for-8 with both hits coming late in the ballgame. In the 1st inning Morneau came to the plate with 2-out and no one on, in the 4th inning he led off the inning (again, no one on obviously) and in the 6th he again came to the plate with 2-out and no one on base. A 3-hole hitter comes to the plate with 2-out and no one on more than any other position in the lineup, a fact I expounded upon in my piece on lineup optimization a couple of weeks ago.

I won't cover it all over again, but the lineup optimization basics say that you should have a high-average/high on-base % guy leading off, the team's best hitter hitting second, an average player in the 3-hole (because the 2-out, no one on sitch) and your power guys batting cleanup and 5th. Putting Morneau at 3 gives him a few more at-bats sure, but it saps his chances to do damage. In today's game, had he gone 3-for-4 as the cleanup guy, he may have had an opportunity or two to drive someone in, and otherwise would have led off a couple of innings with hits and who knows how things might have transpired from there. As it was, his hits were wasted as Delmon Young went 1-for-4 hitting behind him.

The Twins offense certainly isn't by any means doomed with this lineup. As I mentioned earlier, none of the Twins hitters seem to be seeing the ball very well with several of them hitting below the Mendoza-line. This poor hitting is further compounded by the fact that the team as a whole seems impatient at the plate, drawing a total of THREE walks (against 19 strikeouts) in this latest three-game set with the Athletics. When you're not hitting well, and you're not working walks, you aren't going to score many runs and that's what we've seen lately with the Twins. To Pavano, Blackburn and Baker's credit, they pitched pretty well in the series, but the offensive gave them little to no support to back their efforts which is a shame considering how few runs the Twins would have needed to score to take the series.

Put simply, it's up to the hitters to hit (duh). That said, if I were Ron Gardenhire I would keep Mauer in the 2-hole, move Morneau back to the cleanup spot and put Delmon Young or Danny Valencia in the 3-hole. Morneau seems to be hitting better and better as the season moves along and he needs to be put in a situation where he can either a) drive runs in or b) get things started in an inning. Putting him in a position where he is coming to the plate with no one on base and 2-outs is wasting his abilities. As for the other hitters..."come on boys, you gotta get some hits!" Coming into today's game, the Twins as a team were hitting just .203...which is downright terrible. Hopefully the bats will come around this week as the Twins take on the Royals and punchless-Rays. Maybe they'll take some extra BP during their day off tomorrow.

Danny Boy Valencia

Or should I say, "boy, how about Danny Valencia?!?" In another Twins rout of the Royals last night, Valencia did something no other Twins rookie has done in franchise history by collecting 4 hits in two consecutive games. On Monday night, he became the first Twins rookie to ever hit a grand-slam as their 1st major league home run, and if you want a truly mind-boggling stat, Valencia now has 14 hits in his last 19 at-bats (.736) with 6 runs scored and 8 knocked in over that 4-game stretch. If somebody skilled in baseball-reference (and a subscription) could work the searching magic, I bet they wouldn't find too many similar hot streaks in the history of the Twins, if not the history of baseball. Valencia now owns an inflated .400/.449/.511 line through his first 90 Major League at-bats and he's given Gardenhire absolutely no reason to take him out of the lineup, especially in July where he is hitting .500/.542/.705 in 44 at-bats. Valencia was nothing special offensively in the minors so this must be a pleasant surprise for the coaching staff and after the game last night, Valencia himself said, "This is rare. It's definitely rare, it's great to have, but it's something that probably could never come again." No pressure on young Danny Boy, but if he manages to get 3 hits today, he will be the first player to have 5 consecutive 3+ hit games in almost 20 years, and it will also be only the 10th time in baseball history that a player has collected 3+ hits in 5 or more consecutive games.

As Twins fans we're just getting spoiled now with 47 runs and 72 hits in the past 4 games. It's been both fun and somewhat relaxing. The only downside to it all is that the White Sox keep winning which hasn't allowed the Twins to tie for or overtake 1st place. If they keep playing on the pace they are right now though, it won't be long.

There was some talk yesterday about the Twins being interested in current Washington Nationals closer Matt Capps. The background on Capps is that he's a fairly reliable reliever who would certainly help to stabilize the bullpen, but if the Twins have to give up anything substantial, I don't think he's worth it. Here are Capps 2010 numbers so far:

45IP
51H
9BB
37Ks
2.80 ERA
3.51 FIP
3.58 xFIP
25 SVs

For a guy with a career 3.50 ERA, he's having a good season, but given what the Twins have now, he would only be a marginal improvement. The MLBTR piece also mentioned Scott Downs from the Blue Jays, another guy who is having a good season but hasn't been all that dominant over his career. I remained unconvinced that the Twins will make a move before midnight on Saturday, but we'll see.