The season is underway, so it's time to start what will become a weekly series at Twins Nation. Monday is often an off day for the Twins, so we'll take advantage of it to announce who we think was the most valuable player of the previous week for the Twins.

This weeks choice was difficult. It's not that there are several players that are deserving of it and it's hard to choose just one; it's actually just the opposite. With a 1-5 record that was a combined effort of rusty pitching and weak hitting, it almost seems like we should skip a week, but nevertheless we forge ahead.

My first inclination was to award the player of the week honors to the quintet of Josh Towers, Brian Tallet, Vinnie Chulk, Jason Frasor and Justin Speier all of whom combined to give up 13 runs to the Twins on Wednesday night. Without the fine work of those pitchers the Twins would likely be 0-6. My conscience, however, told me I better choose someone that wears a Twins' uniform. Things can never be easy, can they?

Honorable Mention

• Shannon Stewart started off the season on a hot streak. He hit homeruns in the first two games and ended the week with a .385 OBP. Stewart accumulated 7 hits in the series against Toronto, but cooled off in Cleveland, going just 2-for-12.
• Torii Hunter belted a grandslam and accumulated 6 RBI's in the Wednesday night game. Unfortunately, he didn't do much to help the cause in the other 5 games.
• Juan Castro got a hit in each of the 5 games he played in last week. He ended the week with a .400 OBP, though he didn't have any runs or RBIs. That's partially due to the guys hitting around him, but in order to get POW honors, you've gotta contribute to the score. It was tough to write him off, since this will likely be the only week all season that Castro's bat even deserves mentioning.

Player of the Week: Fransisco Liriano

Fransisco Liriano has been the only real bright spot on the Twins pitching staff. Joe Nathan did well, but only pitched one inning. Liriano pitched 4 2/3 innings last week, in relief, and gave up no runs, no walks and just 4 hits. He recorded 7 strikeouts in his 2 appearances. Liriano pitched admirably on Saturday against Cleveland. He inherited a 3-0 deficit from Scott Baker and held the Twins close (It's not his fault they couldn't score any runs). He was so impressive in his 4+ innings that Gardenhire said about him:

"Eventually, sure, he will be a part of the rotation -- you don't want to leave that talent] out in the bullpen. You want to use that. But when? We're going to see how it goes along." (Source: [MLB.com)

Sure, Liriano didn't necessarily create any victories for the Twins, but he wasn't really put in the position to do such a thing. Had he been the starter on Friday night instead of Lohse, maybe we'd have another win, but he wasn't. Liriano provided a glimmer of hope for Twins fans; there may be a Johan Santana, version 2.0, in the near future and that gives fans a lot to be happy about. For that reason, I'm giving Liriano the week 1 POW honors.

Hopefully, next week picking a POW will be hard for a different reason.