May 2006 Archives

Francisco Liriano is becoming one of the pitchers that the Twins can rely on to right the ship when things aren't going well. Wednesday night he had a no-hitter through five innings before Orlando Cabrera reached base on a missed call at first base to break up the no-hitter. Liriano's pitch count was high, so he wouldn't have been able to go more than 6 innings anyway. As good as Liriano was, he's still having some control issues. He walked four batters and had a wild pitch. Now that he's capable of comfortably pitching 100+ pitches it'd be nice if he can become more efficient with his pitch count so he can start to go 7 and 8 innings.

Roger Clemens has agreed on a pro-rated $22 million contract with the Houston Astros and will pitch in a couple starts in the minors before joining what will be a much improved starting rotation.

Scott Baker struggled again on Tuesday night and now stands to possibly become the third pitcher exiled from the Twins rotation this season. The most likely replacement would be Carlos Silva, who was moved out of the rotation a couple weeks ago to work on his stuff. That doesn't exactly give me a lot of confidence, but what other options would we have?

Radke has his best start since his April start against Kansas City and the Twins went into the bottom of the 8th with a 3-2 lead which is almost always safe considering they have Rincon and Nathan to finish close out the game. Poor defense cost the Twins the game though. In the eighth inning Juan Rincon got 2 quick outs, but then walked Jose Molina. Adam Kennedy then grounded to Juan Castro who's throw couldn't be handled by Justin Morneau. No error was given, but it was a play that Morneau should've made. Following that play Luis Castillo had a ball hit off his glove which tied the game.

The Twins won in dramatic fashion on a Lew Ford walk-off homer in the 10th to complete the sweep of Seattle. Johan Santana pitched 7 innings and gave up 3 runs. He did not figure into the decision and Joe Nathan picked up the win after pitching the top of the 10th.

The Twins bats roughed up Jamie Moyer to help Boof Bonser to his first career big league victory. Bonser wasn't exactly perfect, but he did well enough and worked out of some jams (specifically in the first with bases loaded and no outs).

Francisco Liriano turned in another fine start to lead the Twins to a 3-1 victory against Felix Hernadez and the Seattle Mariners.

Friday's home game against the Seattle Mariners looks to be a fun time. Who cares if we're 12.5 games back as May winds down? Before the game starts Governor Pawlenty will sign the stadium bill and begin the countdown to April, 2010 (if it hasn't started already). This is one game I'd absolutely love to be at, but unfortunately the holiday weekend is calling me out of town. Ah well, television will have to do.

Radke has been the definition of consistency for the Twins since he entered the rotation in 1995. From 1996 through 2005 Radke pitched at least 200 innings every year except 2002 (118.1). Excluding his rookie year he's never finished with an ERA that didn't begin with 3 or 4. That kind of consistency definitely earns you a level of goodwill from your team and your fans. It's largely the reason the Twins have stuck by him through his 2 months of struggles so far.

Twins pitching was hit hard on Wednesday afternoon while their bats were completely shut down. Brad Radke had a typical start (not so good) and the bullpen didn't fair much better. The Twins defense wasn't exactly there to backup their pitchers, with 3 errors in the game, but regardless of that Cleveland still had 15 hits, 4 walks, and 10 earned runs.

The Indians scored 5 runs off Johan Santana and the Twins were forced to go 10 innings to pick up the win. The Twins jumped out to an early 4-0 lead with 2 runs in each of the first two innings. The Indians scored two runs in the 5th and three runs in the 6th. Batista made a throwing error resulting in 1 of the 5 runs to be unearned. The Twins tied the game in the bottom of the 6th on a Tony Batista GIDP that scored Justin Morneau from third.

The Twins stadium bill has passed, but the debate certainly hasn't. There's talk of legal challeges, which sound like they have no chance. There's also been a lot of talk about getting a roof on the stadium. That obviously would involve $100 million or so and the two main funding ideas I've heard are:

The Twins started off the week with four straight losses including a sweep by Detroit. They finished the week with a 2-1 series victory in Milwaukee. While the week's record was pretty discouraging, the Twins did make some good roster moves and we did see encouraging starts from a couple newcomers to the rotation. Carlos Silva went to the bullpen after his bad start last Sunday making way for Francisco Liriano. Kyle Lohse headed to AAA after his start on Tuesday and was replaced by Boof Bonser. Both Liriano and Bonser had quality starts and had it not been for the bullpen's failures on Sunday they both would've picked up wins.

Sunday's game was a tough loss for the Twins who got an excellent start from Boof Bonser in his major league debut. Boof started out the game on a rough note by loading up the bases with no outs. He then got a sac fly out which scored the first run of the game for Milwaukee. Bonser kept the damage to a minimum by getting the next two batters by way of a fly ball and a strikeout.

The Twins jumped out to an early 6-0 lead off Milwaukee starter Ben Hendrickson. Hendrickson gave up 6 runs in the first before he was pulled without retiring one Twins batter. The Twins also put together a 5 run fourth inning which included triples by Michael Cuddyer and Juan Castro. The Twins also added runs in the 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th. The Twins have had a handful of high-scoring games this year, so clearly this offense is capable of scoring more runs than it could last year.

Francisco Liriano got his first start of the season for the Twins Friday night, and he met expectations with a nice five inning outing as he works to build up his endurance. Liriano wasn't given a whole lot of breathing room, but the Twins offense scored just enough runs just in time for Liriano's departure after 5 innings.

A conference committe has approved the Twins stadium bill. The bill still has to go the full house and senate for a vote, but it's expected that the votes are there. The bill is similar to the original bill passed by the house which calls for a Hennepin County 0.15 percent sales tax (without the requirement of a referendum). The plan is for an open-air stadium in the downtown warehouse district.

The Twins dropped their fifth straight game and were swept again by the Tigers Thursday afternoon. This is the fourth time the Twins have been swept by an AL Central opponent. Radke struggled early again and the Twins trailed this entire game. Radke did, however, pick up a quality start as 2 of the 5 runs he gave up were unearned. The Twins had 3 errors in the game (Punto throwing, Castro throwing, Morneau fielding) which combined with Detroit's 2 errors set up for a pretty sloppy day of baseball.

On a rare night of great pitching, the Twins still couldn't come up with a win. Last weekend I was starting to think the Twins might have turned a corner, but they now find themselves in another 4 game slide and it's becoming crystal clear that this team simply can't contend with Chicago and Detroit. In one week two fifths of our rotation has changed and 1/3 of our lineup should change as well.

Update (5/17/06 4:05 PM): It's just been reported that the Twins have sent Lohse to AAA Rochester and called up Boof Bonser who will start on Sunday. I'll be curious to see what the future holds for Kyle Lohse. Full AP Story

Another game, another terrible outing by a Twins starter. This is getting old and it's giving me a helpless feeling. The Twins have 4 starters that are struggling mightily, one of which has been replaced with Francisco Liriano. What do you do about the other 3 (Radke, Lohse, Baker)? Radke will stay and he'll be unspectacular but not terrible. Lohse and Baker are more of a concern. I'm glad I'm not Gardy.

The Twins couldn't pull off the Series victory and they now find themselves as many games behind the White Sox as they were before the series started: 8 1/2 games. The White Sox bats were too much for Scott Baker as they beat up on him for 3 runs in the second inning and scored again in the 4th and 5th before he was finally pulled. Baker gave up 2 homeruns and 5 total runs in 4 2/3 innings.

Week six was a pretty good week for the Twins. Last week everyone was writing off the Twins and concentrating on the upcoming Lynx basketball season (ok, not really). Now people are cautiously talking about a run for the playoffs. The bats are the big reason for the turnaround, but anyone who's watched Twins baseball the past 4 years knows that the pitching will need to come around if these team wants to succeed.

I wasn't so sure Gardy would do it, but alas he made the only sane decision possible: he's pulling Silva out of the rotation in favor of Francisco Liriano.

Sunday night's bizarre game included 10 total runs in the first inning, a lot of shaky defense and even a triple play. It was probably the most dissapointing loss for the Twins all year considering that they were handed a 7-3 lead after the first inning.

Through the first 4 1/2 innings of Saturday night's game Brad Radke worked the Twins into a 0-4 deficit and the bats remained largely silent against Javier Vasquez. Radke pitched a quick 1st inning but allowed 1 run in each the 2nd and 3rd innings. Radke gave up 2 more runs in the 5th making the expected outcome of the game look pretty bleak.

The Twins won the first of four games against the White Sox with the help of another great performance by Johan Santana. Johan didn't waste any time ending the no hit bid this time by giving up a leadoff double to Pablo Ozuna in the 1st. However, like his last start against the Tigers, Johan held his opponent scoreless through 6 innings. During that time the Twins offense was strong against struggling White Sox starter Jon Garland.

The Twins won their second straight series and 2nd game in a row with a Wednesday afternoon victory in Texas. Kyle Lohse, at risk of losing his spot in the rotation, desperately needed a good start today. He wasn't spectacular, but was able to avoid damage. He gave up 1 run in 6 innings and picked up his second win of the season. He gave up 6 hits and walked 4 batters in the game.

Since the 1-0 loss to Kansas City last Thursday, the Twins offense has shown strong signs of improvement. Most notably, they're getting hits from guys in the middle of the lineup like Torii Hunter and Michael Cuddyer. Tuesday night, Justin Morneau joined in the fun while contributing 2 homers and 6 RBIs to the Twins 15-5 trouncing of the the Texas Rangers. A little more than a month ago the Twins scored more runs in a game than they did in all of 2005 with 13 runs against Toronto. Tonight, they even surpassed that.

Less than two months ago when Twins Nation launched I promised that new features were in the works, and today brings the introduction of a big new feature: Clubhouse.

First, I want to apologize for the slowness to update the past couple days. It's been a busy weekend, and I've spent most of my free time working on a new feature for right here at Twins Nation. I'm gonna keep quiet on the details for now, but expect an announcement in the next day or two.

Brad Radke's start last week turned out to be what we all expected -- mostly a result of the team he was pitching against. Texas does have some good hitters, so maybe I'm being a bit too harsh on him, but with the way his season has gone so far he doesn't exactly deserve the benefit of the doubt. Radke managed to get through the game without surrendering any homeruns, but he did give up 4 doubles during another of his batting practice outings.

Johan Santana pitched a marvelous game to lead the Twins to a series victory over the Tigers. Johan had a no-hitter through 6 innings, but the final line was blemished by a rougher 7th innings. Johan struck out 11, a season high, which also tied him for the major league lead in strikeouts.

The Twins set out to prove that they are capable of beating the Detroit Tigers, and they did just that -- barely. The Twins scored 2 runs right away in the first inning off starter, Jeremy Bonderman. Luis Castillo started off the rally by beating out the throw on a chopper up the middle. Joe Mauer then reached on a walk and Torii Hunter came through with a double down the 3rd baseline. The hit scored Mauer and Castillo and Hunter made it to 3rd on a Craig Monroe Error. It was quite dissapointing that the Twins couldn't score with Hunter on 3rd and no outs. Michael Cuddyer lined out to 3rd, Justin Morneau walked and Batista grounded out to end the inning.

The Twins lost their 4th straight game against Detroit Friday night at the dome. The Twins offense was surprisingly affective against Kenny Rogers. Rogers has built a reputation of being a Twins killer, so it was great to see not one but several innings in which the Twins managed to score against him. Unfortunately, Kyle Lohse struggled again, banishing any chance the Twins might of had at winning the game.

I didn't watch this game, and I'm happy about that. The Twins were unable to score a run against the worst team in baseball and they allowed Kansas City its first road win of the season. The only bright side of the night was that Carlos Silva finally didn't get rocked, however, that may have had more to do with the offense he was pitching against.

After losing 4 straight the Twins now have a winning streak started after beating Seattle on Tuesday night and Kansas City on Wednesday night. The Twins have also finally found a cure for Brad Radke's early inning struggles -- the Kansas City Royals. Radke gave up just 3 hits, no walks and no runs through the first 6 innings of the game. He did finally surrender a solo homerun to Matt Stairs in the 7th (it's not a true Radke start without a homerun allowed). By that time the Twins already had a comfortable 6 run lead. Fransisco Liriano came in to finish the came and after being a little roughed up in his last outing, he was back to his old ways Wednesday night, striking out 3 and allowing just 1 hit in 2 innings.

Tuesday night's game went a little more as scripted than the past week's games have gone for the Twins. Johan Santana had another excellent start. He went 7 innings and struck out 9. He gave up 1 run on 6 hits and no walks. Santana got off to a rough start giving up hits to the first three batters he faced. However, he kept the damage limited by striking out the next three batters. It was pretty much smooth sailing from that point on for Santana. His high pitch count in the early innings limited him from going more than 7 innings. Rincon pitched the eight and Nathan came in for the ninth.

Following this paragraph will be some numbers that display just how awful the Twins have been. If you have a heart condition or are wearing mascara, you may want to stop reading right now. Now here are the worst teams in runs score and runs allowed in the league.

The Twins hoped to put a miserable weekend of baseball behind them as they returned to the dome for a 7 game series starting with the Seattle Mariners. Unfortunately, the weekend horror story spilled over into Monday as the Twins lost by a pretty wide gap. Monday was just another day for the Twins -- another 19 hits and 8 runs surrendered. They did manage to score more runs than they manged all weekend in Detroit, but 2 runs isn't exactly what I'd call a major league offense.

In the fourth week of the season the Twins had a record of 2-4, winning both games against the struggling Kansas City Royals. The Detroit Series over the weekend can only be described as embarrassing. We didn't have any great performances to speak of from the Detroit series, but we do have a couple worth mentioning from Kansas City.