No Way That Just Happened...

You know that scene in Tommy Boy where David Spade and Chris Farley are driving along with what they assume is a deer carcass in the backseat of Spade's characters once-cherry car when suddenly the deer wakes up, groggy, yet alarmed and starts thrashing out the windows, seats and roof as Spade and Farley scamper into the middle of the highway to avoid the wrath of the deer? After the mayhem ended and the deer stood majestically on the hood of the trashed car then trots off into the forest at which point, seething with disbelief Spade sputters out "No way that just happened..."

Spade, of course, personifies every Twins fans that witnessed the inaugural game in Comerica on Monday night. For the majority of the game, the Tigers looked dejected, they looked liked a 2-10 team: Ivan Rodriguez misplays a pop foul to prolong the inning that resulted in several Twins runs, Miguel Cabrera pulled Carlos Guillen off the base on a routine throw from third, Clete Thomas over ran a Kubel line drive which scored more. After each miscue, the crowd rained boos on the lifeless Tigers. Then... they lifted their heads and blinked. They remembered that they have these big, sharp teeth and these big, sharp claws. Nick Blackburn experienced the wrath firsthand in the 6th inning. "Any time a team with that kind of lineup gets on a roll, it can get dangerous in a hurry," Blackburn said. "Against this team, any mistakes are going to be magnified. They can wake up at any time." Suddenly, there was some sort of roll-reversal. Denard Span escorted what would presumably be an Ivan Rodriguez extra base hit off of reliever Matt Guerrier but was converted into a home run when he failed to secure the ball in his pocket. No way that just happened.

Neshek was asked to rescue Guerrier for the second time in just over a week. On April 7th against the White Sox, Guerrier had allowed both Jim Thome and Paul Konerko to reach before Pat Neshek was asked to get Jermaine Dye, AJ Pierzynski and Carlos Quentin prior to facing Joe Crede, who nailed a broken bat grand slam. Even though it was Neshek's slider that left US Cellular, Guerrier was burdened with the loss. Eight days later, a similar situation arose a few hundred miles east in Michigan. Neshek, after giving this game to the reeling Tigers, left the clubhouse without addressing the reporters, for the second time in the day leaving Guerrier out to dry.

After the second out of the Tigers' end sixth inning was recorded, 14 of the next 19 Detroit batters reached base safely. What transpired was essentially a repeat of what happened a week prior to Nick Blackburn, who in the 6th inning of the April 7th game against the White Sox, turned a one-run lead over to Matt Guerrier. Tonight Blackburn handed off a two-run lead over to Matt Guerrier. The once vaunted Twins bullpen has looked awfully mortal in 2008. Through the first 12 games the relief staff has been highly ineffective in late & close situation (as defined by B-R.com, late & close situations are PA in the 7th or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or the tying run at least on deck). In those predefined situations, opponents were batting .294/.324/.441 with 10 runs score in 68 at-bats. Raise that batting line up a few points following the night in Detroit. Tonight was the first time Matt Guerrier allowed an inherited run to score when he surrendered a single to Edgar Renteria that scored Carlos Guillen from second. Inexplicably, Justin Morneau cut off the throw from Span which could have erased the hobbling Guillen had it been allowed through to the plate. Naturally it caught Renteria leaning towards second however there was a good chance the throw could have beat Guillen. There are certainly questions as to why Guerrier was asked to start the 8th inning. "We had a four-run lead. Neshek's a setup guy. If it's a three-run lead or a two-run lead, we use him in those situations. I would think Matt Guerrier could get through. At 9-5, I think we're doing OK there." Gardenhire said.

I do not need to reiterate the importance of lead-retention when it comes to a team like the Twins. In 2006 the Miracle Twins had a relief corp that held opponents to a .223/.276/.325 batting line in late & close situations. That season relievers combined to finish 26-10 with a 2.91 era. The lackluster Twins of 2007 contained a relief staff that possessed a significantly higher .258/.325/.413 opponent batting line in those same circumstances, they finished 20-18 with a 3.87 era. Through just the first 12 games, the bullpen managed to only lose the one game (the aforementioned Neshek debacle) but they have been substantially more hittable in the critical portions of the game, being touched up at .294/.324/.441.

Happy F-Bomb Day.

For the first time since the second inning of the game against Oakland on September 13th, 2006, Francisco Liriano will toe the rubber for the Minnesota Twins. Joe C reports that Liriano isn't nervous for his 2008 debut, however, Stan Cliburn, Rochester's manager, suggests that Liriano has to work on command issues. Cliburn has some apprehension for sending Liriano to the big club at this juncture. Jim Malendero wrote that "Apparently, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire had considered Cliburn's recommendation that Liriano pitch one more game in the minors, then rejected it."

Liriano is matched up against Brian Bannister who has become the Thinking Man's Pitcher. Bannister said that he is more prone to studying pitch f/x data rather than video alone because of the pitch detail. “Everybody can throw a fastball, but if one guy’s explodes in the last 10 feet and the other’s goes dead straight, there’s a huge difference” Bannister explained. “That’s where the magic lies: in tweaking your pitches in order to get the most out of your ability.”

It would appear that the Rochester manager believes that Liriano is one start in the minors away from being ready. The International League manager was going to limit to Liriano to a 100-pitch count if he were to toss for the Red Wings one last time. In his most recent start, Liriano needed 88-pitches to get through 4 innings. Extrapolating that, you would have to believe - if Gardenhire follows the same flight plan as Cliburn of 100 pitches - Liriano will be replaced in the 4th or 5th inning by Brian Bass. The numbers suggest that Liriano isn't nearly as dominating yet, his walk rate is high and the balls in play are more adept to be in the air rather than the ground.

AL Central Update

The 2008 season, still in its infancy, has seen numerous surprises in the American League Central alone. Detroit, instead of walloping opponents as predicted during the hot stove league, has sputtered to a 1-8 start while dropping its first 7 games. This incited manager Jim Leyland (always a colorful quote) to quell everybody in Motown's fears of duplicating their 2003 season which started in similar fashion by saying, "I haven't got the answer as to why we're not hitting," he said, "If I did, I would have told the guys. If it's puzzling to me that we're not hitting, it must be really puzzling to you (the media). You guys have been calling them (the Tigers) 'murderers' row' since spring. I don't give a (expletive) about the start." Conversely, Kansas City has gotten off to an equally surprising start, which began with a sweep of the Tigers at Comerica. In as much as the Tigers starting pitching has been failing to provide quality starts, the Kansas City Royals staff has thrown copious amount of high quality innings (a baffling revelation is comparison to previous Royals teams). Through the first 8 games of the season, Detroit's rotation has averaged a Game Score of 43 while the Royals have averaged Game Score of 55. More importantly, while the Tigers offense has only offer a mere 2.68 runs of support, the Royals have been bolstering the solid pitching with 4.00 runs of support per game. Meanwhile the rest of the division - the Twins, Sox, and Indians - have jockeyed for middle ground.

Kansas City Royals

• Joe Posnanski continue's his man-crush on Brian Bannister, analyzing his first start of the season against Detroit, which resulted in a Game Score of 77. His second game came against the Yankees at the home opener at Kauffman where he made 5 innings and gave up 5 hits while striking out 6 and walking 4 but also recieved his second victory of the year. In three match-ups against Alex Rodriguez, Bannister struck him out looking all three times. "He made some great pitches -- there's not much you can do," Rodriguez said. "I can't really look back and say those were pitches I could have hit or crushed; perhaps maybe just fouled off. Today, he was much better than I was -- give him a lot of credit."
• Maybe it is the rube in me, but I like the fact that the Royals have added Garth Brooks's "Friends in Low Places" as a sing-a-long similar to Boston's "Sweet Caroline".
• Nomo returned. Not graciously I might add.

Chicago White Sox

• I find it interesting when people call something "the Twins model". Chicago GM Kenny Williams has been comparing his building of his 2008 club to that of the 2003-2004 Twins which had AJ, Torii, Denny and Dougie, or as Williams describes them as "grinders": “You know, this job is one in which you never stop learning,’’ Williams explained on Monday, hours before the Sox rallied to beat Minnesota 7-4. “Early on, I thought throwing talent at the wall would bring a championship, and for three or four years, on paper we had the best team in the division. There were at least two of those years where Minnesota won the division, and then came out and even said, ‘That team there [the Sox] has more talent than us.’ That really made me rethink some of the things we were doing, the approach we were taking.’’
• Like Detroit's Brandon Inge, Joe Crede went into spring training considered an expendable third baseman but has completely hit the cover off of the ball. ''Joe always seems that when the game is on the line, he's 'Mr. Clutch,''' Guillen said following Crede's broken bat grand-slam off of Pat Neshek. ''He's a cold-blooded player and always seems to come through.'' Crede already has 3 home runs in just 32 at-bats this season compared to 2007 when he had 4 total home runs in 167 at-bats while hitting .406/.429/.781 in that duration.
• Through the first eight games, the White Sox have been carried by their offensive, averaging 6.34 runs of support per game while the pitching start struggles. The starters have been averaging a Game Score of 40 in those starts - twice failing to throw in the 20s.
• AJ Pierzynski, like Joe Crede, is having a resurgence at the beginning of this season culminating in winning the American League Player of the Week for the first week of 2008. Through the first 8 games the former Twins catcher is hitting .429/.484/.786 with six extra base hits among his 12 total hits.

Cleveland Indians

• The Indians recently bought out Fausto Carmona's arbitration years by signing him to a 4-year, $15 million dollar deal similar to the one the Cardinals signed Adam Wainwright to. In his first two starts, Carmona is maintaining his groundball trend which he established last season at a 66% rate, this year 88% of balls in play have been on the grass. He has shown erratic tendencies including walking 9 in just 11 innings.
• Through 9 games, Cleveland was tied with the Twins but had a much different picture of how they reached that record. Averaging 4.22 runs of support per start, the Indians dropped 3 out of 4 games when they surrendered 6 runs or more. The Indians starting rotation has been producing nearly a quality start each outing (an average Game Score of 49) but it is the bullpen that has been failing, specifically closer Joe Borowski. In 2.3 innings Borowski has allowed 5 earned runs, including 2 home runs and already blowing one save. Cleveland might have to admit early that the lucked out in 2007 using Borowski as a closer: Despite leading the American League in saves, Borowski was only able to covert 84% of his opportunities and was nearly a full earned run higher (5.07) than every other closer with double-digit saves not named Al Reyes (4.90). Rafeal Betancourt and his 31 holds in 2008 is a great candidate to replace Borowski.

Minnesota Twins

• Contrary to what preseason wags believed, the Twins starting rotation has been one of the most consistent in the division, next to the Royals, averaging a Game Score of 51 through 9 games. I'll admit Livan Hernandez's back-to-back starts have been good, he has been the recipient of 1 run of support more per start (5.01) then the staff's average (4.04). Even though as I am writing this Hernandez just finished 7 innings of scoreless ball against the Royals, I am not yet ready to proclaim him the ace. Call me bitter, but I am still reminded of the 2007 start of Ramon Ortiz: through his first five starts, Ortiz was 3-1, averaging a Game Score of 59 per start. In his last five starts as a Minnesota Twin, Ortiz averaged a paltry Game Score of 28 finishing 3-5 prior to being sent to the bullpen and then ultimately Colorado. Obviously injuries to Kevin Slowey and Francisco Liriano's inability to be ready come season open has validated the necessity to sign Hernandez, however, the ascension of Nick Blackburn has also proved that if the Twins have faith in their developed talent that they too can provide quality innings.
• Even though people are hoping all over the Jason Kubel bandwagon - complemented nicely with a Free Jason Kubel campaign - I just want to go on record as saying that as early as January I believed that Kubel would be a vital piece to this Twins line-up and that the naysayers were in for a surprise (I appreciate Seth's support at the time, might have be the only other person to read that). I believe the debate between play Kubel and not-play Kubel was divided between the "results based" fans and the "process based" fans. Those who look strictly at the surface numbers (i.e. rbis, home runs, etc) would have been disappointed in his performance. The hype that followed Kubel up from the minors was large and his knee injury certainly detered his play. Last year, his line drive rate was back to where it had been prior to his injury and his second-half numbers not only had better results, but indicated that he had more patience and was rediscovering his strike zone by walking more and striking out less. I will go on record as stating he looks like the least happiest professional athlete ever to hit a major league home run.

Detriot Tigers

• Finally winning their first game of the season has provided a sense of relief to the Tiger clubhouse. Back in December, I dissected the lineup and wrote four reasons why they could be grossly overrated. Regression was one reason, specifically for players like Renteria and Sheffield, but injuries to key players (such as the one currently to Curtis Granderson) could easily upset the balance. Of course nobody would expects the Tigers to finish in the cellar, especially with the talent laden lineup they have, but there is plenty of reason to believe that they are not as good as everybody once believed.
• Outside of Carlos Guillen, the one player they wanted to ship out during the winter, Brandon Inge, has been their most consistant hitter in the first 8 games. He is batting .269/.387/.577 with 2 home runs and leading the team with 6 rbis. Meanwhile the offseason acquisition Miguel Cabrera has been hitting a measely .125/.300/.250 with a home run (his only rbi coming on that as well). Because of the injury to Granderson, Leyland has ignorantly opted to use Inge in center over Jacque Jones. For his career, Inge has played center just 25 times having a range factor of 2.12 (with the average being 2.34) while Jones has played 243 games in center in his career having a range factor of 2.43 above the average of 2.36.
• Dontrelle Willis walked 7 in his 5 inning debut for the Tigers. This apparently was a record, said the Detroit Free Press: According to research done through Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org, Willis became the first big-league pitcher since at least 1956 to do all of the following in the same outing: throw at least five innings, allow no more than one hit, give up at least seven walks and not strike out anyone.
• While time might be on the Tigers side, history isn't. The Rocky Mountain News' Tracy Ringolsby shows that only a handful of teams in history (eight to be exact) have started the season 2-8 and made the playoffs. One of them may be familiar: the 1991 Minnesota Twins.

Twins Notes

• Michael Cuddyer found himself on the DL after a hard slide into the back of Royals' third baseman Alex Gordon's cleat. The injury will cost Cuddyer a 15-day stint on the DL and will also remove a potent bat against left-handed pitching. This creates a vacuum at the number 3 spot, one that Cuddyer had not satisfactory This season Cuddyer has come to the plate with runs in scoring position six times and only once did he manage to drive in a run (Gomez from third). In two of those instances, he struck out. Even though he had a slow start and lacked production at the beginning of the season, Cuddyer was still the logical choice to bat third over Delmon Young.

• Interestingly enough, the Twins opted to recall Denard Span over the hot-hitting Garrett Jones in response to losing their number 3 hitter. Jones, in his first three games at Rochester, compiled 12 at-bats and accumulated 6 hits (2 extra base hits) while driving in 4 runs and scoring 4 more himself. Span, meanwhile, in his two games has received 9 at-bats and has managed to assemble a bell curve-like batting line of .333/.400/.333. All of his hits have been singles but he added two stolen bases while scoring once and driving in one. A year ago, the organization might have been tempted to recall Jones strictly on his current hitting streak only to receive offensive futility and defensive liability at the major league level. While I believe that Jones could be a useful part on a team that needs a left-handed bat in a pinch, Span offers more defense and on-base abilities that have been lacking in the early part of this season. Because he is left-handed, it makes Span less of an ideal replacement. As was the case on Monday's game against the White Sox, Gardenhire had a lefty-dominated line-up of Span, Mauer and Morneau batting 3-4-5.

• The definition of a mutually beneficial relationship: Through 8 games, Carlos Gomez has scored five times and was driven in by Joe Mauer in all instances except one. The local pundits have often made a point of degrading Mauer's ability strictly because he finishes with a low rbi number for a typical three hitter. While I hold the philosophical praise of the RBI in contempt, I do believe that Mauer could eclipse the 100-rbi mark for the first time in his career if the duo continues this pace. In previous seasons, Mauer lacked the runner positioned on second base who could easily score on a single. Gomez completes that piece of the puzzle. It will be interesting to see how the revised Cuddyer-less line-up effects this dynamic what with Joey Jo-Jo shifting to the three hole and Span and occasionally Matt Tolbert shifted into the two spot.

• You got Blackburn'ed: The new term for when Nick Blackburn strikes you out. In his full seasons Blackburn's strike out rate was typically at 10-13% while in the minors. So far in 2008, he's dispatching batters at a 21% strike out rate -- this output is not likely to sustain but it still proves that he very much belongs in the rotation even when Liriano comes back. Blackburn has been the recipient of both silent bats and imploding bullpens otherwise the rookie might be staring down a 2-0 start to his career instead of the 0-1 he currently has. In his 2008 debut, Blackburn limited the formidable Angels to one run - on his wild pitch - and struck out Vlad Guerrero three times. He scattered five hits in his 7 innings of work, compilign a Game Score of 68. In that game Blackburn was able to get groundballs on 80% of the balls put in play. The unfortunate part for Blackburn is that the Angels starter Joe Saunders who held the Twins scoreless while pitching to what amounted to a Game Score of 77. Last night against the White Sox, Blackburn pitched 5 innings and accumulated 5 strikeouts. His results were not necessarily ideal as he proved by his Game Score of 48, but he did leave the game with a 3-2 lead before the bullpen turned it over. Although two starts is not a proper measurement of skill, Blackburn, who is known as a groundball pitcher, induced groundballs at a 67% rate in those games.

Royals Series Preview

Twins 1-3 (2.06 runs scored per game/4.25 runs surrendered per game) | Royals 3-0 (4.03 runs scored per game/1.66 runs surrendered per game)

Up until today, the last time the Twins faced a Royals team with a winning record was August 23rd, 2003. On that day, the Twins found themselves in third place, a half behind the surprising Royals. Johan Santana dominated a line-up that still contained Carlos Beltran, striking out 10 in six innings. The Twins won that game, the final of a three game series at the Dome, and continued a second-half climb that culmenated in the second of four division championships. While the Twins went 46-23 during that stretch on the way to a 90-72 record, the Royals failed to sustain the level of play at the beginning of the season, finishing 32-38 in the second half dropping back to third in the AL Central.

(Perhaps the reversal of fortune could be attributed to career back-up catcher Tom Prince. In 2003, the Twins used the 38-year-old catcher in the first-half of the season and were 44-49 at the all-star break and were 7.5 games behind the Royals. On July 13th, the Twins released the aging catcher and several days later the Royals signed him. Up to the break, the Royals were 51-41, when they picked up Prince, they finished a 32-38, 7 games behind the Twins. Then again, Prince only played 8 games for the Royals which was hardly enough opportunity to appropriately sabotage a baseball team.)

Nearly five years worth of games have been played against Kansas City and they have all been against a sub-.500 opponent. Now, the only players that remains on either roster now is Juan Rincon, Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer for the Twins and just David Dejesus for the Royals. Naturally, the season is only four games old, but these Royals have shown signs that they are not quite the doormat that everybody thought they would have been. Sweeping a three game series from the Tigers at Comerica would have been a daunting task on paper before the season started. Detroit was a bit of a shall, lacking Curtis Granderson and having Miguel Cabrera scratched during one game, but the starting pitching, not to mention the bullpen, helped the Royals start undefeated. Zack Greinke and Brian Bannister combined to limit the potentially most potent line-up to only one run in the past two games. Furthermore, the once worthless Royals bullpen that could be counted on to hand over a lead on a moment's notice threw 4 innings of scoreless ball and only walked one batter.

While Kansas city Star's Sam Mellinger outlined plenty of reasons not to get too caught up in this fast start, there seems to be just as many reasons to think that this could be sustainable. Though three games are difficult to mount total optimism, this squad does have the parts to be competitive. After all, players like Alex Gordon, Mark Teahen and Billy Butler are all dangerous hitters - that's not even mentioning what Jose Guillen could conceivably contribute. The bullpen with Joakim Soria and Leo Nunez has legitimate talent that was lacking the previous seasons.