Where's Our Great Pitching? April 9th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
After the first week of baseball our offense has at time looked better, and at other times looked like last year’s offense. The cold weather in Clevelend probably played a big part in the Twins’ poor offensive production there. It’s not too surprising that the offense has started out a little slow, but it is surprising the way the starting pitching has begun the season.
Of the 32 earned runs given up by Twins pitchers, 27 of them are credited to the starters. The staff, as a whole, has a 5.88 ERA through the first 6 games. What’s wrong with the pitching staff that is virtually unchanged from last season’s top 5 staff? It’s most likely due to the lack of innings the starters got in the spring. Let’s take a look at how much work each starter got in spring training.
| Pitcher | GS | IP | WBC GS | WBC IP | Total GS | Total IP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kyle Lohse | 7 | 26.0 | - | - | 7 | 26.0 |
| Scott Baker | 6 | 23.0 | - | - | 6 | 23.0 |
| Brad Radke | 6 | 22.0 | - | - | 6 | 22.0 |
| Carlos Silva | 3 | 14.0 | 0 | 5.2 | 3 | 19.2 |
| Johan Santana | 3 | 9.2 | 2 | 8.1 | 5 | 18.0 |
Note: WBC denotes “World Baseball Classic”
Some of these guys are expected to throw at least 200 innings over the course of the season. Considering the season is 6 months long, that means each is expected to give at least 33 innings per month. I realize that during the spring the pitchers are trying to build up their endurance, so expecting them to get 30+ innings in the spring is a little unrealistic. Less than 20 innings of work just isn’t enough to get ready for the season though.
The World Baseball Classic played a major part in Silva and Santana not getting enough innings. It’s unfortunate that the tournament had to take place during spring training when players should be preparing for the season. However, some of the blame should also fall on Gardenhire as well. He should’ve worked those players deeper into the games in their final couple starts of the spring.
The Twins might be heading into their 9 game homestand with a couple more wins had the starting pitchers been ready for the season. The good news, however, is that the Twins pitchers will get on track after a couple starts, and hopefully the wins will start to come. It’s unfortunate that the team finds themselves in a 1 and 5 hole that will take a week or two of good baseball to crawl out of.
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