As La Velle heads to Colorado to cover the next Twins series, I’m home writing our Sunday baseball insider column. A few random thoughts heading into the weekend:

(*) The Mets held Johan Santana back to start tonight’s Subway Series opener at Yankee Stadium. The tension will be thick. The Mets are 20-19, and there are rumblings that manager Willie Randolph could be fired. The Yankees are in last place, with Hank Steinbrenner bristling about Brian Cashman’s decision not to trade for Santana, who is 4-2 with a 3.10 ERA. Phil Hughes (0-4, 9.00 ERA) and Ian Kennedy (0-3, 8.48) are not making that decision look very good.

(*) The Mets and Yankees will be on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” of course. I took some heat about this last year, but I’ll say it again: I like watching those telecasts, even if it’s a never-ending parade of Red Sox and Yankees games. I enjoy listening to Jon Miller, especially, and don’t mind Joe Morgan nearly as much as others. My wife’s favorite show is TLC’s “Jon & Kate Plus Eight.” But she knows Sundays are reserved for “Jon & Joe Plus Nine.”

(*) Francisco Liriano had his best day yet on the comeback trail from Tommy John surgery Thursday, holding Class AAA Columbus to three runs on seven hits and only one walk over eight innings. Here’s an excerpt from the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle:

Liriano, the International League rookie of the year in 2005, pitched his best game of the season. He worked eight always-in-control innings, allowing three runs.

“I’m very close,” Liriano said. “Everything is coming back together. I’m not too far away.”

Of the seven hits he allowed, six were singles and one was a double. He walked one and struck out four. Most impressive, though, was his strike-to-ball ratio. Of 93 pitches, 61 were strikes. That’s his best in five IL starts.

“Liriano keeps getting better and better,” Wings manager Stan Cliburn said. “His velocity is up. His command of the zone is better.”

The Frontier Field radar gun topped out at 93 mph and consistently registered 90 and 91.

“When he came back (from a short stint with the Twins), he was 86-87 and might have popped one at 90,” Cliburn said.

(*) Tonight, the Twins will face hard-throwing Rockies righthander Ubaldo Jimenez, who is 1-3 with a 5.53 ERA but fanned 11 batters in 6 2/3 innings on Saturday at San Diego. According to Fan Graphs, Jimenez’s average fastball has been clocked at 94 mph this year, a tick below the pitcher the Twins faced Thursday, Toronto’s Dustin McGowan (95.3 mph).

I explored Fan Graphs after seeing Aaron Gleeman’s post this week, which noted that Jesse Crain is throwing the Twins’ hardest fastball (94.2 mph) this year, with Livan Hernandez (84.1 mph) bringing up the rear.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 11:13 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.