How much would I like to see the Twins take 3 of 4 at Yankee Stadium? More than I'd like to be the one to personally fire Gardenhire and get "the Franchise" out of town. OK maybe not that much but it would probably make my pants a little tighter. But I'm still worried by this team. I am reasonably sure that the heart of this lineup can produce this season. The starters are always a little concerning for me and the bullpen is an absolute heart attack on a nightly basis. This ...
Originally published at The Tenth Inning Stretch --- By now the fact that the Twins have designated Luke Hughes for assignment to clear a 25-man roster for Jason Marquis is old news. I have always felt that Luke Hughes was a player with a lot of potential but for some reason the Twins did not see that and unfortunately might be added to a list of players including David Ortiz, Sergio Santos and Garrett Jones who have flourished after the Twins released them. ...
Original post from North Dakota Twins Fan ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the aftermath of a disastrous outing from Francisco Liriano on Tuesday night at Yankee Stadium, there has been plenty written about the lanky left-hander for the Twins. The Twins watched Liriano struggle out of the gate in 2011 and now the same story is playing out at the beginning of 2012. In his first ...
When the Twins long 2011 season came to an end, there were a lot of questions. Who would be back? Who would be healthy? However, in general, one of the players who was expected to remain with the Twins was Ben Revere. Throughout the offseason, it was just a given that, even thought he didn’t hit well in 2011, he improved his game in September and his range and speed made up for any other deficiencies. The biggest question early in the offseason was whether the Twins should have Revere play ...
Updated 04-18-2012 at 11:00 PM by Seth Stohs
Twins do it again in New York. Win 2 of the first 3 guaranteeing at least a split against the Yankees in the Bronx. Marquis struggled early on, understandably with his emotions of 1st game back after his daughter's bike accident, first game as a Twins and first start in New York, his boyhood team. Thankfully the bats were alive early and got him the lead. He held them in the 1st thanks to a double play, and they continued to stay in the game, but never got the big hit to take the lead. Capps made ...
I wrote this in 2003, but somehow haven't revisited it for a while. Give the recent stadium kerfuffle, it seems like a good story to revisit, especially because it reflects a core tenet of this site: sports ARE important, and we don't shouldn't apologize for thinking so. ~~~~ Reject the fundamental assumption. After that, the arguments start answering themselves. This Sunday morning I was awakened by our 3-year-old son, at the customary time of 0-dark:30. ...
I know that most Twins bloggers (myself included) were not a big fan of the Twins signing of Jason Marquis. I get that. However, if you can’t appreciate the emotions that he must have gone through tonight in his first start in Yankees Stadium, in his first start with the Twins, in his first big league start since his daughters ghastly bicycle accident, then I’m really sorry! So, he gave up three runs in the first inning after the Twins scored four in the top of the first. He gave up four runs in ...
On April 16th, 2000, I went to the Dome to see the Twins take on the Orioles. Joe Mays vs. Sidney Ponson - what an auspicious pitching matchup that was! Mays took the mound and proceeded to lose the game with dizzying speed. Homer, single, double, 2-run single, groundout, 2-run homer. 6 batters and 20 pitches into the game, he’d allowed 5 ER on 5 H. Undoubtedly, someone was up in the bullpen. Perhaps there were some derisive cheers when TK walked out to the mound. After all, this was ...
Updated 04-18-2012 at 04:30 PM by James Richter
With pitcher Scott Baker out for the 2012 season with upcoming Tommy John surgery, the Twins are now down to just Carl Pavano, Jason Marquis and Francisco Liriano remaining from their original starting rotation. Marquis is slated to make his Twins debut against the Yankees today after missing the first part of the season so be with his daughter as she recovers from a bicycle accident and Liriano is fresh off a dismal 2.1 inning start that saw the Twins fall 8-3 in New York on Tuesday night. While ...
[Originally published at Twins Fan From Afar] The New Britain Rock Cats lost a close game this afternoon, 2-1, to the Portland Sea Dogs. This was a pitcher's duel, to be sure. Starter Steve Hirschfeld pitched 7 strong innings for the Rock Cats, striking out 7 and walking none, to lower his ERA to 1.06. He surrendered just three hits. Blake Martin struck out 2 in a scoreless 8th. Luis Perdomo blew the save after allowing two walks and a double in the 9th, and then lost the game when, ...
Updated 04-18-2012 at 02:18 PM by Twins Fan From Afar
The Twins lost to the Yankees and CC Sabathia on Tuesday night, but there was plenty to talk about in the minor league system. A Japanese import had a big game. An MVP from independent ball had a second straight big game. The Snappers played two, and the big man from the Dominican launched home run #5 on the young season, to keep up with Josh Willingham for the organizational lead! The minor leagues finished the day 3-2. Here is a look at the Twins minor league games from Tuesday and even more ...
With the Twins pitching staff seemingly dwindling by the day I started to think about what the Twins could do to bolster it or what could they have done to prevent this. Then I remembered reading a rumor about a trade the Twins were looking at after the 2007 season. If you recall this is the off-season Johan Santana was traded for Carlos Gomez, Philip Humber, Kevin Mulvey and Deolis Guerra. The rumored trade that Bill Smith supposedly turned down because there weren't enough pieces was Johan ...
Following a spring in which he struck out 33 and walked just five opponents, for three straight starts Francisco Liriano has failed to demonstrate much command over the strike zone. After posting a 49.2% first-pitch strike rate in 2011, the worst mark in baseball, the Twins left-handers has come out of the gate attempting to best that by throwing a first-pitch strike just 42.9% of the time. Meanwhile, as the rest of the league has peppered the strike zone with bullets 49% of the time ...
It just happens to take two pitchers to make that one Ace. Between Carl Pavano's mindset, and Francisco Liriano's stuff, we actually do have that one Ace. Pavano demonstrated on Monday that he has that bulldog mentality that an ace needs, to decide that he is going to go out, compete, and get some outs for his team. Liriano demonstrated on Tuesday that he is one of the most mentally fragile picthers in the league, that is yet to learn how to handle adversity. If we could somehow combine them ...
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