The best part about April for the Twins was that no AL Central foe ran away from them in the standings. At 13-14, they are just 1 1/2 games behind first-place Chicago. Over the past three years, that same start would have felt a lot worse.

April 2007: Cleveland 14-8, Twins 14-11

April 2006: Chicago 17-7, Detroit 16-9, Twins 9-15 (en route to the division title)

April 2005: Chicago 17-7, Twins 15-8

But look out for the Tigers. After a 2-10 start, they have won 12 of their past 17, averaging 6.9 runs per game in that span. They just finished a three-game sweep at Yankee Stadium.

With Joel Zumaya and Fernando Rodney on the DL, the bullpen has been a major question. But the Tigers introduced a new force this week, in RHP Francisco Cruceta.

He received a 50-game suspension last year for a positive steroid test, and this led to a visa delay that kept him home in the Dominican Republic during spring training. So the Tigers were anxiously awaiting his arrival. In three games for Class AAA Toledo, he notched 15 strikeouts in seven innings — that caught my attention.

To make room on the roster this week, the Tigers traded reliever Jason Grilli, a fixture during the Jim Leyland era, to Colorado.

I watched Cruceta face the Yankees last night, to see if he could live up to the hype. Leyland inserted him with an 8-4 lead in the ninth inning. Cruceta issued a five-pitch walk to Bobby Abreu and fell behind 3-0 to Shelley Duncan, forcing Leyland to start warming up closer Todd Jones.

But Cruceta regained his composure and began pumping strikes with his 94-mph fastball. He has a hard slider that breaks straight downward, and you can see how he got all those strikeouts for Toledo. He retired Duncan, Hideki Matsui and Melky Cabrera to end the game, and flashed a big smile as his teammates gathered to congratulate him.

Knowing how hot Detroit’s offense is, and knowing their pitching is getting settled, you get the feeling the Tigers could be smiling for a good, long time.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under Around MLB, Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.