Ramon Ortiz Topic Page

I sort of feel like I'm living in Bizarro World with the Twins offense managing 17 runs in a 2-game span and the recent news of Ramon Ortiz being traded to the Rockies (I'll post a link when I find one Denver Post, MLB.com: Rockies add veteran pitcher Ortiz).

The Twins offense impressively took back Toronto's five run lead by scoring 2 runs in the eighth and 3 runs in the ninth. The fought threw 13 innings, but in the end they came up just a bit short and the Jays won 9 to 8. The large deficit, not surprisingly, was the result of Ramon Ortiz.

In Milwaukee there was hardly a thing to complain about on Friday and Saturday night. The Twins seemed to be turning a corner. Sunday's loss was disappointing, but could largely be blamed on Ramon Ortiz and Dennys Reyes. Things got ugly on Monday in Texas which could lead to the conclusion that the Twins just happened to catch the Brewers at a good time.

For a 15-7 loss, there's still some positive things that can be taken from the game. For the second straight game, the Twins offense was able to put some runs on the board. Michael Cuddyer gave the Twins an early lead with a 2-run homer in the first. The Twins had 3 other home runs--2 from Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel's first. The problem on Tuesday night was Twins pitching.

There's no doubt that the Twins are sitting in a much better decision right now than they were as April closed last year. They finished off April with a 14-11 record compared to last year's 9-15 and they sit just 1.5 games behind the division leading Indians rather than trailing the White Sox by 8.0 games. That's not to say they exceeded expectations. Most people, including myself, expect the Twins to be a winning team this season and the April record puts them on pace to win about 91 games.

Jorge De La Rosa shut down the Twins offense as the Royals won the series two games to one. De La Rosa got into trouble early as he loaded the bases with just one out. However, he got Justin Morneau on strikes and Torii Hunter flied out to end the inning with three runners stranded. After that first inning The Twins didn't see a baserunner until the sixth inning when Joe Mauer got his second single of the day. Cuddyer doubled after that to score the only Twins' run of the day.

Before the game it was safe to assume that it would be a high scoring affair with two not so great pitchers, Jeff Weaver and Ramon Ortiz, faced off against each other. Ortiz got through the game without much damage, but Weaver was absolutely terrible. Weaver actually cut his 31.50 ERA in half with the 7 runs in 6 innings, but a 15.75 ERA still sucks.

The high-powered Yankee lineup was no match for...Ramon Ortiz??? I fully expected another beating from the Yankees, but Ortiz stepped up big-time for the longest Twins start of the season. He allowed just three hits and a walk through eight innings. The Twins offense came around just in time with four runs in the eighth inning to give Ortiz the win. The first two starts of the season for Ortiz have been about as encouraging as possible.

You can't ask for a better start to the season than a 3-game sweep at home. For the most part, the Orioles were a pretty unimpressive team in all aspects, so I'm not ready to predict a 100 win season just yet. It was encouraging to see a quality start from Boof Bonser on Tuesday night and now Ramon Ortiz on Wednesday night. The real test will come in the next two games with Carlos Silva and Sidney Ponson

Everyone knows that Carlos Silva is coming off a horrible season. While there are still a fair number of delusional people that think he'll magically turn it around, I think most people that follow the Twins regularly knew in the back of their minds that the Twins had probably wasted $4.5 million dollars when they opted to bring back Silva for 2007. Even with my highly negative view towards Silva, I still thought it was almost certain he'd start out the season in the rotation, but that's starting to look much less likely.