Posts in category BitchSox

Eleven Days In July

Jul14th
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

When I’m getting ready to draft a new post, I often do a quick check of what other Twins bloggers are writing about so I can avoid doing nothing more than adding one more post on the same subject others are already covering (and likely covering much better than I would, anyway). I did the same thing this morning and obviously there’s no shortage of material in the Twins blogdom about the upcoming series with the Royals, Indians and Tigers. So I should have come up with another subject to write about.

But I didn’t.

The Twins play twelve games over the next eleven days (thanks to a make-up game that turns next Monday’s scheduled game with Cleveland in to a doubleheader). All three series are against AL Central Division teams and two of those series are against the virtual co-leaders of the Division… teams that the Twins trail by about half a dozen games in the standings.

With the non-waiver trade deadline looming a week after the Twins wrap up this intra-divisional stretch, it’s certainly possible to conclude that by the time the Twins finish up their July 24 game with the Tigers, we’ll all know how the rest of the season will play out. We’ll know whether GM Bill Smith will spend the last week of July looking for bullpen help or whether he’ll be fielding offers for some of the higher-paid Twins that are free-agency bound at the end of the season. After all of the trials and tribulations of April and May and after the turnaround in June and, thus far, July, it all comes down to these eleven days.

Or does it?

It’s fun to think of it that way. It certainly generates excitement and enthusiasm among the fan base. It may even be healthy for the players if thinking along those lines helps them focus and give just that little bit of an extra effort. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that it’s still only 12 games… just under 7.5% of the season’s schedule.

Hey, the Twins certainly don’t want to lose 2/3 of these games and it’s always particularly helpful to beat the team’s you are trying to catch when you face them one-on-one. But this is hardly the last time our guys will be going head-to-head with their divisional competition. Even after they wrap up the next twelve games, they will have ANOTHER NINE GAMES EACH against the Tigers, Indians and White Sox during the final two months of the season.

My point is… yes, these three series are important and it would certainly be helpful to keep the momentum going and cut a bit more in to the deficits the Twins face behind the Tribe and Tigers. But if it turns out that they don’t… if it turns out they’re still a handful of games behind at the end of all this… it would still be premature to start writing obituaries for this team, as long as neither of the co-leaders rattles off about 15 straight wins to leave everyone in the dust.

Those of us who held off on declaring the season a lost cause at the end of May have been rewarded for our patience. The Twins are definitely still playing meaningful baseball.

Delmon Young rejoins the line up tonight

They have steadily improved. They are getting healthier and that means their bench is getting deeper (which has been so thin recently as to almost make one yearn for the days when the “bats on the bench” consisted of some combination of Jason Tyner, Lew Ford, Rondell White, Luis Rodriguez and Brian Buscher). And keep in mind that the teams the Twins are chasing are not exactly the 1927 Yankees… or even the 2011 Yankees, for that matter. The three teams ahead of the Twins have some flaws and those franchises don’t exactly have a recent history of strong second half finishes.

So… enjoy the next eleven days and let’s hope the Twins keep closing on the leaders, but let’s try to retain some perspective. There’s going to be a lot of baseball to be played in August and September, regardless of how these games shake out.

- JC

Opponents, Tigers, Tribe, Twins baseball

GameChat – Twins @ White Sox #2, 7:10pm

Jul8th
2011 Written by CapitalBabs

All three blog hosts are otherwise committed tonight (probably rightfully so) but we’re hoping you guys have been doing this long enough to know how to chat & cheer on your own!

Minnesota

@

 Chi White Sox
Revere, CF Pierre, LF
Casilla, A, 2B Ramirez, Al, SS
Mauer, C Konerko, 1B
Cuddyer, RF Dunn, A, DH
Valencia, DH Quentin, RF
Tosoni, LF Rios, CF
Hughes, L, 1B Pierzynski, C
Nishioka, SS Beckham, 2B
Tolbert, 3B Morel, 3B
  Blackburn, P   Floyd, P
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 1 0 1 6 0 0 0 0 0 8 14 0
Chi White Sox 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 5 11 0

I didn’t get to actually SEE any of this game and all of the scoring was done before I even got to listen to any of it. From what I can tell, however, kudos are due to several players.

Working backwards from the finish, both Joe Nathan and Matt Capps pitched perfect innings of relief. That’s exactly what we envisioned getting out of those guys when the season started. In fact, Alex Burnett managed a similar inning and Phil Dumatrait looked good, too. And while starter Nick Blackburn obviously got off to a horid start and didn’t have a sharp game, you have to give a guy credit for fighting his way through five innings even when he clearly wasn’t at the top of his game.

On the offensive side, Alexi Casilla, Joe Mauer, Michael Cuddyer and Rene Tosoni all contributed a pair of hits, but it was Luke Hughes’ 3-run home run that provided the winning margin. His 3 hits in 5 AB and 3 RBI earned him a consensus Boyfriend of the Day award from the GameChat folks! – JC

Luke Hughes

 

GameChat, Twins baseball    ,

GameChat – Twins @ White Sox, 7:10

Jul7th
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

Make no mistake, this is a big series.

It’s preposterous to call any game or even any series a “must win” at this point in the season. Still, you don’t have to spend much time perusing the standings before coming to the conclusion that the pre-AllStar Break series that begins tonight against the White Sox is huge.

It’s easy to focus on the number of games the Twins trail the AL Central Division leaders, if for no other reason than those are the numbers we see published every day in the media. The Twins have been bouncing around between 7-9 games behind whichever team, the Indians or Tigers, might happen to be leading the division on a particular date. In fact, some writers (including myself) have pointed to the week of July 18-24, when the Twins are scheduled to play eight games against the Indians and Tigers in a span of seven days as the stretch during which the Twins’ destiny will be determined.

But, as we all know, the Twins don’t just trail Cleveland and Detroit. If the Twins are truly going to pull themselves up in to contention, they’re going to have to step over the cold, dead body of the BitchSox, as well. The Sox haven’t found a way to win even a single game over the Twins so far, with our guys going 2-0 both on their last trip to Chicago, in May, and also on the Sox’ return trip in June. That’s a trend that needs to continue.

The Sox enjoy a 3.5 game lead over the Twins as the series begins. A Twins sweep would propel them in to third place at the AllStar Break. Getting swept by the Sox would mean a 7.5 game deficit and we’ll probably start reading a lot more articles about other teams contacting the Twins about trades, like this one from the Denver Post, as it would seem all but impossible to catch and pass three teams from that far back at the Break.

As for tonight’s game… it’s the long-awaited (and much too ballyhooed) debut of Joe Mauer at first base for the Twins.

Joe and the Twins will be facing off against former Twin Phil Humber. Joe Christensen at the Strib wrote a nice piece on Humber that’s worth a read.

Finally, congratulations to Sox 1B Paul Konerko on winning the fan vote for the final spot on the AL AllStar team. Personally, I thought it was stupid that he had to go through that process, rather than just being named on his own merits. Konerko is one of those guys I can’t help but respect, even when he plays for a rival.

TWINS

@

 WHITE SOX
Revere, CF Pierre, LF
Casilla, A, 2B Vizquel, 3B
Mauer, 1B Konerko, 1B
Cuddyer, RF Dunn, A, DH
Thome, DH Rios, CF
Valencia, 3B Pierzynski, C
Tosoni, LF Ramirez, Al, SS
Nishioka, SS Teahen, RF
Butera, C Beckham, 2B
  _Pavano, P   _Humber,P

 

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 1 2 0 3 0 0 0 0 0 6 13 0
Chi White Sox 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 2 6 1

Didn’t tonight just remind you how much fun it is to beat the BitchSox?

Carl Pavano wasn’t terrificly sharp, but he still got through 7 innings while giving up only 2 runs, so you have to happily take that. Glen Perkins and Matt Capps… yes, Matt Capps… each contributed a scoreless inning of relief work.

Ben Revere had a really nice night, going 3 for 5 with a couple of runs scored and Tsuyoshi Nishioka contributed with the bat and the glove.

But tonight’s BOD was pretty clearly Joe Mauer. The Chairman had 3 hits and 2 RBI, and also looked like he had been playing 1B most of his career. Ground balls, line drives, scooping balls in the dirt, soft-tossing to the pitcher covering… he had to do it all and did just fine. Good work Joe!

Joe Mauer (and 1B coach Jerry White)

.

GameChat, General, Twins baseball    ,

The Final Countdown: 80 Games

Jul3rd
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

We knew it was too good to last, of course. You simply don’t continue to gain several games on your competition every week the way the Twins had been closing in on the teams above them in the standings. It’s actually a bit surprising that they didn’t lose any more ground than they did, considering the competition they faced over the past 10 games.

We here at Knuckleballs started this little “Countdown” exercise a few weeks ago when the Twins had played 62 games, leaving 100 remaining, and we’re continuing to check in every 10 games to see what sort of progress the team is making. With 100 games remaining, the Twins trailed the Tigers by exactly 10 games. A little quick math revealed that they needed to gain one game in the standigns on the Tigers for every 10 games played to catch up to them by the end of the season.

We’re also keeping track of where our guys stand in comparison to the BitchSox, since we’ve pretty much assumed from the start of the season that Ozzie’s Southsiders will be in the race until the end.

While I’m still not willing to add them to the REAL AL Central Standings, for our purposes, I do have to give Cleveland credit for not folding as quickly as I thought they would. I still don’t think they’ll be contending by the end of the season, but they sure seem to continue to think otherwise.

Anyway, here are the REAL AL Central Standings at this particular checkpoint, with the Twins having exactly 80 more ballgames left to play:

TWINS GAMES REMAINING: 80

TEAM RECORD GB
Tigers 45-40 -
BitchSox 42-43 3
TWINS 36-46 7.5

With the All-Star break this week, it will be two more weeks before the Twins get another 10 games under their belts. Four of those games will be on the road at Chicago, but the other six will be at home against the Rays and Royals. During the same period of time, the Tigers will play seven of nine games on the road, while the BitchSox play seven of their next ten games against either the Twins or Tigers.

In other words, the Twins have an excellent opportunity to make up more ground before we check in again at the 70-game mark!

- JC

 

Opponents, Tigers, Twins baseball

The Final Countdown: 90 Games

Jun23rd
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

Ten games ago, I wrote about how the Twins had pulled within 10 games of the Detroit Tigers with 100 games left on their schedule. The symmetry of that was too much to resist.

Since I just can’t get my mind to accept the possibility that the Indians could possibly be in the race for the long haul, I’ve been standing by my preseason contention that the AL Central would come down to the Twins, Tigers and White Sox. Based on this, we’re going to check in with the Twins’ progress every 10 games (if I remember to do so) in relation to where their real division rivals sit.

Trailing the Tigers by 10 games with 100 to play meant all they had to do was trim one game off that lead every 10 games in order to catch the Tigers by the end of the season. So today, as the countdown reaches 90 remaining games on the Twins schedule, where are things sitting?

Let’s just say there’s been some progress… and that’s putting it mildly… even after that clunker Wednesday night in San Francisco. Here are the REAL AL Central Division Standings with 90 games to play:

TWINS GAMES REMAINING: 90

TEAM RECORD GB
Tigers 40-35 -
BitchSox 37-39 3.5
TWINS 32-40 6.5

I don’t think any of us expected to see the Twins close this gap this fast. Yes, the BitchSox are sneaking up on the Tigers, too, but I think our guys proved they own the southsiders last week, didn’t they? We’ll keep them listed in the REAL AL Central Division Standings just because it looks tacky to only list one team other than the Twins, but if this race comes down to Twins and BitchSox, I like the Twins’ chances.

On the other hand, the Twins haven’t had any luck against the Tigers yet at all, so I like watching them lose to anyone who can step up and do the job. 

- JC

 

General, Opponents, Tigers, Twins baseball

Movin’ On Up! 1 Down, 3 To Go!

Jun19th
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

The Twins’ dramatic win today over the Padres, combined with the Royals’ 5-4 loss to St. Louis, moves the Twins out of the AL Central cellar and up in to fourth place in the Division for the first time since May 8.

Our guys didn’t gain on the Indians, who outlasted the Pirates in an extra-inning game to gain a sweep of their own, or the Tigers, who slapped the Rockies around, or even the White Sox, who beat the D-Backs again. The Tigers remain 1 game behind Cleveland and the Bitch Sox are 5.5 games back of the leaders (just 2.5 games ahead of the Twins). The Twins have Monday off, while all three of the teams ahead of them start new interleague series on Monday.

I don’t think it’s realistic to expect the Twins to continue winning games at the pace they’ve been on as they not only go on the road, but do so against the defending World Series Champion (and current NL West leader) San Francisco Giants and the current NL Central leading Milwaukee Brewers.

But a 9-1 home stand is nothing to sneeze at and after this 6-game road trip, they’ll come back home for another nice long home stand.

Five weeks ago, the Twins trailed the Royals by 7.5 games in the standings. Today, they passed the Royals and are taking aim on the team ahead of them, the White Sox, and there’s no sign of any “quit” in this team.

I’m already on record as saying the Indians simply don’t matter and I stand by that. Take a look at their schedule between now and the All-Star break and tell me they won’t be lucky just to stay in the top three of the standings. They get the Rox, the Giants, the D-Backs, and the Reds before hosting the Yankees and Blue Jays just ahead of the break.

The White Sox will very possibly be looking up at the Twins in the standings by the break, but the Tigers will be a lot tougher to close the gap on. Their schedule is softer and I’m betting they’ve got a three game lead in the division by the break.

It’s too early to know whether the Twins will use this stretch of success to springboard them up in to serious contention as the summer goes on, but a while back I wrote that I would be happy if they’d just show the kind of effort and skill that would make it fun to watch them again… and they’ve certainly done that.

Whether or not the Twins WILL turn themselves in to legitimate contenders remains to be seen, but I think we’ve reached the point where nobody should dare tell them that they CAN’T do exactly that.

- JC

Opponents, Tigers, Twins baseball

The Final Countdown – 100 Games

Jun10th
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

Entering Friday night’s game against the Texas Rangers, the Twins are carrying a record of 24-38. You know what that means, don’t you? No… not that they’ve pretty much sucked all year (well, OK, it kind of does mean that, but that’s not what I’m talking about right now).

It means they’ve played 62 games. And you know what that means, don’t you? (Stick with me here… I’ll get to the point eventually.)

It means there are exactly 100 games left in the Twins’ regular season.

That works out really well for my purposes because the Twins are also 10 games behind the AL Central Division leaders. (What’s that? You say the Twins are 11.5 games out of first place? Well, technically, yes… but as I pointed out in early May, in the REAL AL Central Standings, the Twins only have to care about how far they trail the Tigers and White Sox.)

Being 10 games behind the Tigers with 100 games to play makes it easy enough to figure out what the Twins need to do to not only get back in this race, but win it. They need to make up 1 game in the REAL standings every 10 games they play. (Yeah, I know… they’ll need to do SLIGHTLY better than that if they want to avoid another Game 163 showdown.)

That’s not so tough, right?

Well… yeah it is, actually.

We’re all pretty thrilled that our guys have trimmed something like 5.5 games off their deficit to the Cleveland Indians in the past week or so, but even with the success the Twins have had lately, the Twins have actually DROPPED a game further behind the Tigers in the REAL AL Central Standings over the course of the past 10 games and have just kept pace with the White Sox.

So, before we celebrate too much, let’s keep our focus where it belongs. Cleveland and Kansas City have some good, young talent and down the road, they’re going to contend for playoff spots. But that road extends in to the future beyond this season. This year, it will not matter how the Twins measure up to the Indians and Royals. What will matter, as it has over the past few seasons, is where they finish in relation to the Tigers and White Sox.

Let’s keep track, shall we?

Every ten games, for as long as it matters, we’ll bring everyone up to date on what the REAL AL Central Standings look like and we can measure whether the Twins are making the necessary ground up on the Tigers and BitchSox.

TWINS GAMES REMAINING: 100

TEAM RECORD GB
Tigers 34-28 -
BitchSox 31-34 4.5
TWINS 24-38 10

We’ll update these standings every 10 games (or as often as we remember to do it).

And what, you may ask, happens if I’m wrong about the whole “Indians and Royals don’t matter” thing? Well… you’d be surprised how quickly all evidence of a blog post can be erased.

- JC

General, Opponents, Tigers

Looking For Distractions

Apr30th
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

I’m in the middle of a three-week period where I’m traveling to different parts of the country every week for work, so it’s not that I have nothing going on to occupy my mind, but since March I’ve focused much of my “spare time” on what’s going on with the Twins. I’ve blogged about the Twins. I went to Spring Training to hang out for a week watching the Twins. I’ve ranted about the blackout rules that keep me from being able to watch Twins games.

I’ve watched as one Twins player after another has fallen to injury, illness, or both. I’m not sure which team has been hurt more by injury/illness… the Twins or my Fantasy teams. But as Strib  beat reporter LaVelle E. Neal III pointed out in a recent post, the problem isn’t JUST the guys who aren’t available to play… most of the guys who ARE playing are simply not playing well. And there’s really no excuse for that.

I’m not jumping on the “fire, trade and release everyone” bandwagon that Seth Stohs did a great job of debunking in his recent post over at SethSpeaks.net. As miserable as the month of April has been for the Twins, it is after all just one of six months that make up the MLB regular season. Some of these guys are going to get it figured out and start being much more productive. Some may not. And it’s not like there’s much of anyone hitting down on the farm at Rochester, anyway (with Trevor Plouffe being one possible exception… at least until he, too, began a recent slump at the plate).

But I’m really not sure how much more of this ineptitude I can keep watching, right now. That Royals game Friday night was just downright painful to see unfold. So, I’m looking for other things to focus some attention on. Here are just a couple of things that I’ve found.

Ozzie and the White Sox: This group sucks just as much as the Twins lately (if not more). All things considered, I would much rather watch good baseball than bad baseball. The two Orioles/Red Sox games I attended this week in Baltimore were fun to watch because I saw good pitching, timely hitting, and some good defensive plays. That’s what I LIKE to see when I watch professional ballplayers. But if I have to watch bad baseball, I get a lot more enjoyment out of watching bad baseball being played by players wearing White Sox uniforms than Twins uniforms and fortunately, the current group of BitchSox are accommodating me.

Maybe Ozzie could give Gardy Tweeting lessons

And did you see that Ozzie immediately went to tweeting about an umpire that had just ejected him from a game this week? Now THAT’S the kind of “firing it through the internet” you won’t see Gardy doing! Of course, I would probably enjoy the Sox struggles even more if I didn’t have Paul Konerko and Adam Dunn on one of my already-doomed Fantasy teams.

The NFL Draft: I haven’t watched a lot of the NFL draft this week, but I hoped following it a bit would be a nice distraction from what’s happening with the Twins. Sounded good, in theory. Then the Vikings used the 12th pick of the draft to pick up a QB that I really don’t see as being any better than many of the QBs still on the board going in to Saturday’s fourth round… and a tight end in the second round… seriously? The Vikings have enormous needs on both the offensive and defensive lines, not to mention the defensive secondary. And there were some terrific options available at those positions when their turn came in the first round, but they decided to pick a QB that either won’t play this season or will get killed if he does play, because they have nobody who can protect him.

Twins fans… those of you who like to call for the firing of everyone who is responsible for filling out the Twins’ roster, let this serve as a warning… having different decision makers is not the same as having good decision makers. You could end up with a front office like the Vikings have and the Twins could very quickly become the Pittsburgh Pirates.

On the other hand, Hawkeye defensive end Adrian Clayborn was selected by Tampa Bay in the first round of the draft, so that was nice to see. There are probably 7-8 other former Hawkeyes that have some chance of getting drafted in the later rounds this weekend, so I’ll keep an eye on that.

UPDATE: The Vikings picked Hawkeye DT Christian Ballard in the 4th round… so I’m a bit excited about that. It will be great to have another Hawkeye joining LB Chad Greenway on the Vikings’ defense for me to cheer for!

Minor League Baseball: I really wish the Cedar Rapids Kernels were in town this weekend. I wanted badly to just go spend my Friday night and Saturday at the ballpark watching them play. Alas, they were on the road. But in checking their schedule, I was reminded that a week from today, the Kernels will be hosting the first game of a three-game series with the Twins’ Midwest League affiliate, the Beloit Snappers. That’s at least something to look forward to next weekend!

The Snappers visit the Kernels next weekend

Both the Snappers and Kernels are off to pretty good starts, so I’m looking forward to seeing some of the kids I watched on the minor league spring training complex in Ft. Myers take on the local club. They play a night game Saturday, a 2:00 game Sunday afternoon and a noon game on getaway day, Monday. I’m thinking that may be a good day to take a vacation day before I have to get on a plane for Florida the next day. It will also give me an opportunity to get the camera out and provide material for at least a couple of posts here at Knuckleballs.

What about you? Are you finding something to focus your free time on to take your mind off the Twins’ struggles? Let us know if you’ve got any great ideas to share!

- JC

 

General, Minor Leagues, Twins baseball    ,

Let It Be

Apr21st
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

Copyright: (whoever keeps me from getting sued)

~When I find myself in times of trouble…~

I’m channeling my inner Beatle today, I guess.

I tend to do that when I get stressed, especially over things that are totally out of my control. Like now, for instance.

Everyone is frustrated over the Twins’ lousy start to the 2011 season. Our instinct is to reach for answers… for things that could be done to fix the multitude of problems besetting the team. We lash out at the manager, the GM, the hitters, the pitchers… if only they would do their jobs better, the wins would come. As fans, we can’t DO anything, really… except lament the situation. Of course, different people lament in different ways.

If only there was something we could DO… any little thing… that might at least make us feel better, even if it provided little or no actual value to the team itself.

That is what I have done and I invite you to do so, as well.

Who among us didn’t have a mother who gave us some version of the, “Eat your liver… there are starving children in Africa who would love to have the kind of food we put on your plate,” speech?

Yes, folks, that’s how bad things have become. I’m not only channeling John Lennon, but my mother, as well.

But like the guy who lays down a bunt to break out of a slump, I’ll use whatever means is necessary to come up with a way to make me feel better about these times of trouble and today that means looking around to find someone who is worse off than we, as Twins fans, are.

And believe it or not, things COULD be worse.

Look out west… there’s a team out there that’s not only lost more games than they’ve won, but now they seem to have lost their owner, as well! The Dodger players only got their last paychecks because their owner got a personal loan from FOX and now it looks like they’re going to get Bud Selig’s “representative” running their team. That makes dropping a couple of games to the Orioles seem pretty inconsequential, by comparison.

The Mets and Mariners actually have worse records than the Twins do. But in their cases, their records pretty much reflect what fans’ expectations of those teams are. They aren’t even giving their fans some semblance of early season hope like the Royals are. As bad as things may seem in Twinsville, I wouldn’t change places with a Mets or Mariners fan at the moment.

And, better yet, as if just to make sure his buddy Ron Gardenhire doesn’t become overwrought with depression over the Twins early start, Ozzie Guillen has guided his southside boys to a seven game losing streak. Yes, for all the miserable results the Twins have had, they are still just one game behind the White Sox in the standings. And, unlike the Twins, the Sox haven’t called up half their AAA team just in order to field enough players to avoid a forfeit. Sure, they’d like to see Jake Peavy healthy again (has he ever been healthy since the Sox traded for him?), but that’s nothing compared to the guys who are MIA for the Twins. As Twins fans, we can look forward to the day when Nishioka’s leg heals, Nathan regains his arm strength, Slowey’s arm doesn’t hurt any more, Mauer’s legs regain some strength and Morneau & Young can stay off the toilet long enough to play a baseball game.

If you’re a BitchSox fan, what can you possibly look forward to besides another desperate (and ultimately futile) July trade by your GM?

One thing you notice if you follow teams during spring training like I have the last few years is that every team loses about ¾ of their road games. That’s because teams generally trot out a lineup consisting of 2-3 regulars (none of them “stars”) with the remainder consisting of guys destined to spend most, if not all, of the season at AAA or below.

Check the lineups Gardy is putting out there in Baltimore this week and you’ll see that’s pretty much what he’s stuck with having to do. He’s running spring training road line ups up against the Birds and hoping to win a game or two just by accident.

But at least he can look at the injury report (or in the bathroom) and see that better days are ahead… he will get better players back on the field at some point. Ozzie and all those poor BitchSox fans would love to be able to look ahead and see half a dozen better players returning to the lineup in the future.

And if that’s not enough to give you hope for a better tomorrow, then keep in mind that at least Bud Selig isn’t taking over your team.

So, for now… let’s just chill and let all those negative waves leave our bodies as we sing together…

~Let it be… let it be… let it be, yeah, let it be… whisper words of wisdom… let it beeeee~

- JC

General, Twins baseball

Are The Twins The Team To Beat?

Mar7th
2011 Written by Jim Crikket

The Twins and their consensus AL Central Division challengers, the White Sox and Tigers, are all about 25-30% of the way through their Spring Training exhibition schedules, so maybe now is a good time to sneak a quick peek at how they’re measuring up. With the caveat being, as always, that you really shouldn’t read too much in to Spring Training performances, at least we aren’t having to do all of our evaluation “on paper”, as we did all off-season.

A lot of us were pretty harsh in our evaluations of the Twins’ moves (or lack thereof), especially during the first couple of months of the off-season. The Twins lost over half of their historically reliable bullpen and both of their starting middle infielders. With only one exception, the plan clearly became to replace those vacancies either from within or with spare parts picked up from other teams’ cast-offs. That strategy could very well work, at least in the bullpen, where there are a couple of guys with pretty good track records looking to regain past levels of effectiveness.

Tsuyoshi Nishioka (Photo: C Krupa/AP)

That one exception, Japanese batting champion Tsuyoshi Nishioka, comes with his own set of question marks, though the biggest is not necessarily one of his own making. Nishioka is relatively young for a guy making the transition from the NBL to Major League Baseball. He’s had a successful career in Japan, though he’s had some trouble staying healthy at times. The relative lack of experience, compared to other Japanese stars who’ve made the jump to the US, makes it impossible to know just how good he really is. On the other hand, it’s pretty tough to find comparable Japanese position players who have come over and become true stars at the MLB level. There’s Ichiro and… well… nobody else, really. The result is that American fans rightfully take a “show me” attitude toward Japanese imports.

Early returns are mixed on Nishioka. Scouting reports that his arm strength made him a better match for second base than shortstop have been somewhat backed up by his performance and after just a couple of games at each position, manager Ron Gardenhire announced that Nishioka would, indeed, play second base. Alexi Casilla, who broke in to the Angels organization as a shortstop, has the stronger arm and shortstop is his position to lose, at this point. But Nishioka seems to put bat on ball pretty well and that’s going to be critical if he hits in the #2 spot in the order.

Nishioka may be the lone “big addition” to the Twins roster over the winter, but the two biggest additions to the Twins’ 25-man roster entering the season stand to be names very familiar to Twins fans… Joe Nathan and Justin Morneau.  Some of us tend to forget that the Twins essentially won the AL Central last season with little contribution from two of their biggest stars. Nathan missed the entire 2010 season and Morneau missed the last half of the year. While Nathan appears to be back and ready to reclaim his closer role, Morneau has yet to be cleared to play in games. If the Twins have a healthy Morneau on the field most of the season (especially at the end, for a change) and if Nathan’s arm stays intact and he maybe gets a little help from Pat Neshek, who’s also hoping to return to past levels of effectiveness, there’s no reason the Twins shouldn’t be considered the favorite to defend their Division Championship.

The Competition

The Indians and Royals should be interesting to watch this season. Both have some very highly regarded young players, though it’s too early to know for sure how much time those prospects will see at the Major League level in 2011. In any event, it would surprise just about everyone if either of those teams was in contention for the AL Central title in September. But the White Sox and Tigers almost certainly will be.

A year ago, it seemed like everyone was handing the Division to the White Sox, on the strength of their starting rotation. The Sox’ brain trust (yeah, I know, referring to Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen as a brain trust is downright giggle-inducing) apparently felt their pitching was so good that they could and should dump Jim Thome from his DH spot and replace him with Mark Teahan… no, seriously, that’s what they thought! I don’t believe even the Sox fan base was surprised when they turned out to be wrong.

This year, the Whities have tweaked the pitching staff a bit, including signing away Jesse Crain from the Twins, but their biggest addition (both figuratively and literally) is 6’6” hitting machine, Adam Dunn. Dunn sees himself as a complete player, capable of playing defense as well as hitting, and hoped to stay in the National League, where he’s played his entire career. But he got only a token offer from the Nationals, while several AL teams made significantly higher offers, virtually all of which came with the catch that he’d primarily be a DH. Dunn may be reluctant to embrace that role, but make no mistake, he will excel at it. In his last six seasons, Dunn has hit 40, 40, 40, 40, 38 and 38 home runs. Hmmm… I wonder how many he’s likely to hit for the White Sox, especially in that Little League ballpark they have on the South Side.

The White Sox definitely should be better this year, but the Twins still have one thing going for them… that “brain trust” (giggle) can probably be counted on to screw things up somehow.

Speaking of screwing things up, I’m not sure whether Vegas let’s you bet on who will lead the Divisions at the mid-point of the season, but if they do, you can pretty safely put your money on the Detroit Tigers. Absolutely nobody will be shocked if the Tigers come out of the gate strong and lead the Twins and White Sox in to July. Likewise, absolutely nobody will be shocked if they go 10-20 in August and fade away in September.

How and why they do it is always a mystery. Maybe their pitching will fade, maybe a star player will need to detox. Every season we get to watch a new drama unfold in Detroit.

Again, make no mistake, the Tigers made some moves that look to improve themselves. Victor Martinez will make hitters around him better and Joaquin Benoit should improve their bullpen. I’m just not sure it will be enough to keep the Tigers in contention all year. Benoit can’t do it all himself and the rest of the Tigers bullpen isn’t terribly scary. Joel Zumaya throws serious heat, but the only thing he’s reliable at is getting hurt at some point. In fact, he’s already had the predictable “setback” in his recovery from elbow surgery. And let’s face it, Miguel Cabrera is a time bomb waiting to go off on that organization and, from all appearances, Tiger management’s plan to deal with his drinking problem consists of sticking their heads in the sand. Good luck with that.

So far this spring, the Tigers’ rotation is looking pretty good. Justin Verlander, Rick Porcello and Max Scherzer are all throwing strikes and getting outs. The guy to watch the rest of the spring, though, might be former Yankee Phil Coke. He’s looked pretty good over his first three starts and if he carries that performance in to the season, he could make an already strong rotation a very, very good rotation. On the offensive side, things aren’t so rosy yet. The three big bats in the middle of the Tiger order, Martinez, Cabrera and Ordonez, have accumulated OPS’s of .566, .334 and .286, respectively. Yes… those are the SUMS of their on-base percentages and slugging percentages. Ouch. Then again, small sample size. One of the games I’m planning on attending down in Florida in a couple of weeks is a Twins/Tigers matchup in Lakeland. I’m anxious to get a look at this year’s edition of the Tigers as we get deeper in to the exhibition season.

Over in Arizona, the White Sox are not having fun (at least not during the games). They’re 1-6, heading in to this week, and much of the blame for that lies with their vaunted rotation. While Peavy, Danks and Jackson got through their first starts without incident, Mark Buehrle and Gavin Floyd got beat around pretty good. Mr. Crain hasn’t looked too good yet, either, by the way. Dunn hasn’t gotten untracked either yet and, in fact, their only regular with a respectable showing with the bat so far is Juan Pierre, who’s OPS is north of .900. Alex Rios has the only HR for the White Sox in their first seven games.

To wrap things up on a positive note, I thought I would share this video from Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci, evaluating the Twins prospects for defending their Division Championship. – JC

P.S. I did a guest spot on Seth Stohs (Sethspeaks.net) Sunday night podcast and you can click here to listen to the half hour program, during which Seth and I touched on a number of Twins topics. I’m also scheduled to appear with John Bonnes (TwinsGeek) on Fanatic Jack’s podcast at 9:00 this Wednesday night. – JC

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