Monday (Twins’ Young Guns) Edition: Wha’ Happened?
Posted on August 4th, 2008 – 8:59 AMBy Michael Rand
We don’t want to read too much into Francisco Liriano’s start yesterday other than to say it was, well, a good start. As most people have said all along: he doesn’t need to be what he was in 2006; he just has to be close. And yesterday, he was close enough to throw six shutout innings and to, at least for the moment, give Twins fans a dizzyingly good feeling about the starting rotation not just for 2008 but well beyond. Five guys — Scott Baker, Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey, Glen Perkins and Liriano — all between the ages of 24 and 26 make up a rotation for a team that is now in first place with two months to play. Examples of such depth of youth on a successful starting staff are very rare; we think immediately of the 2003 Marlins and some of the early 1990s teams (minus Charlie Leibrandt) in Atlanta. Not one of the Twins’ starters has pitched a full Major League season; Baker (65), Blackburn (22), Slowey (28), Liriano (24) and Perkins (16) have combined to make 155 career starts — more than 200 fewer than the recently dispatched Livan Hernandez has made all by himself. Now: obviously there are no guarantees that these five pitchers will continue on the arcs established this year. Injuries and sudden bouts of ineffectiveness can crop up at any point for a pitcher (just ask Carl Pavano, Dontrelle Willis and, to a lesser degree, Brad Penny from that Marlins team of just five years ago). But in light of these Twins’ Young Guns’ accomplishments, we have two questions:
1) How confident are you that they can keep up their solid work and pitch the Twins into the playoffs this year?
2) How much better do you feel about the future of the staff than you did at the start of the year, when Johan Santana, Carlos Silva and Matt Garza were gone and replaced with, frankly, no sure things?
*Fasola-link! RIP, Skip Caray. Indeed. On a personal note, we grew up listening to the dulcet, nasal tones of Mr. Caray. He will be missed.
12 Responses to "Monday (Twins’ Young Guns) Edition: Wha’ Happened?"
1) 37.4% chance that they pitch the Twins into the playoffs. If they make the playoffs it will be the offense stepping up.
2) I’m still not sold. Other than Baker they don’t really have any sure things. Liriano could return to a #1 or #2 or he could pull a Willis. The other three pitchers are all #3-#5 starters that are only slightly above average right now.
Baker, Slowey and Liriano all have the goods to be top-of-rotation starters, and Blackburn and Perkins will be solid back-end pitchers for years to come. Throw in the prospects we have coming up*, and the future looks good. It’s like that old song says, the future is so bright, we should consider donning protective eyewear.
* Y’all seen Shooter Hunt’s stats thus far? Holy Toledo.
Liriano smelling his arm pit? Gomez smelling his bat? Must be an (b)omen.
I now believe the Twins will take the division. They still need another right-handed bat, but dont see that happening, so it will be another case of 1 and done.
On the brighter side, now Livan can go with his true calling and become a mean wiffle ball pitcher.
Brandon
Holy Beloit is a little more fitting. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
HoSink made a good point (via Dick ‘n Bert): Liriano doesn’t need to be his 2006 self, he just needs to be better than Hernandez. And clearly, he was yesterday.
JPF:
Just over the wire - 10 Balls and a Plastic Yellow bat have picked up Livan Hernandez for this weekend’s Wifflin’ For Wishes Wiffle Ball Tournament. Livan is reportedly going to receive the league-minimum for his stint with the team (4 bottles of Coors Light and a ham sandwich).
Isn’t Livan a little more suited for a slow pitch beer league than either baseball or wiffle ball? His change up would be almost an unhittable pitch in slow pitch softball.
Can anyone confirm my belief that the Twins have control of the aforementioned rotation for the next four years? Now you can see why they passed on Beltre.
Also, did anyone hear that Brett Favre arrived in Green Bay via chartered jet and that the team will now hold an open competition for its starting quarterback job between Favre and some other guy they drafted out of Cal a few years ago?
I just want to say how proud I am to see our very own RB’s Erin Andrews story all over the blogosphere, nice work RB.
I’m really worried about the depth of starting pitchers at this point. The Twins are covered when it comes to their first 5 starts, but if one of those guys gets injured it’s Bonser, Bass or ??? Not much depth at all in AAA.
I think Rand may have one or two upped Stu’s Huntdown that made the LA Times. A quick glance shows Rand’s EA story mentioned on
The Big Lead
Deadspin
Awful Announcing
The Fanhouse
I think a 13 year old boy in a small village in Northern India just found out what Andrew’s thinks by reading Rand’s interview in the Hindu out of New Delhi.
Congrats Rand, how long before the WWL hires you and puts you in a cube next to Ms. Andrews?
