Phillip Humber Topic Page

The Twins struggled through the first week of the season on their way to a 3-4 start. All four losses came in games in which the Twins offense put up 0 or 1 runs, so clearly the offense needs to step things up and show a bit more consistency.

Carlos Gomez, Michael Cuddyer and Joe Crede each averaged more than a strikeout per game, with the team totaling 50 on the week-- about a 20% increase over their strikeout rate from 2008.

Compared to last season, not a lot changed for the Twins this past winter. Last offseason saw the loss of Johan Santana and Torii Hunter as well as a trade that sent Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett to the Tampa Bay Rays for Delmon Young and Brendan Harris. This offseason's biggest move was the signing of Joe Crede, who comes into the season still trying to shake off any doubt about his health.

Let's take a position-by-position look at where the Twins stand in 2009 compared to 2008.

The Twins have just a handful of players to cut prior to heading north for the start of the season (one week from tomorrow), so there's a pretty clear picture of what the roster will look like when the Twins host Seattle on April 6th.

The currrent roster is as follows:

Pitchers

With Kevin Slowey questionable for his next start and Francisco Liriano's cycle in the rotation aligning with Slowey's, there's been much speculation that Sunday could mark the return of Liriano.

The speculation of the weekend culminated in Monday's official announcement by the Twins that they have signed Joe Nathan through 2011 with a team option for 2012. For a team who's recent history has been to let star players go when they enter their most expensive years, this should come as a pleasant surprise. It's really hard to get too upset over this; every fan wants their team to retain its best players.

The Twins open the regular season in just a week and it won't be long before we have a clear picture of what exactly the team will look like at the Metrodome on March 31st.

The Twins played their first game of the spring, facing off against the Concordia College Golden Bears. It more more or less a fun competition in which Rick Stelmaszek was the home plate umpire and Ron Gardenhire umpired first base.