The Seattle series in review

The first series of the year is over. The Twins tied 2-2 with the Seattle Mariners and are in second place in the AL Central, half a game behind the Kansas City Royals, half a game a head of the Chicago White Sox, a game ahead of the Detroit Tigers and a game and a half ahead of the win-less Cleveland Indians.

This series concluded with a classic pitcher's duo in which Jarrod Washburn, outlasted Glen Perkins to lead his Mariners to a 2-0 matinee victory. A few observations from this series, in a random order:

• The Mariners are not as bad as they look on paper. The addition of Guterriez and Chavez in the outfield will help them win several games (one could argue that today's was one of them) with the glove. With the Angel's rotation a huge question mark and the Rangers and A's unpredictable, it could be possible that the Mariners might contend this season, if they get the right bounces like they did in this series. A split with the Mariners at home might sound discouraging, but lets not forget that the Twins last season spit a home series with the Rays and we all know what happened to the Rays...


• There were a lot of nerves at the starting rotation, but Perkins and Liriano performed very well pitching 8 and 7 innings of 0.88 and 0.57 WHIP, respectively. As a matter of fact, that was Perkins' best start with the Twins.


• Having Crede at third base will be a huge factor for the Twins, even if his bat is slow to wake up. Just in this series Crede made at least 5 plays that Buscher could not make in his dreams.


• The biggest surprise as far as the bats go, was Denard Span who followed an awful spring with a .308/.438/.538 performance, one home run, a team leading 4 RBI and 1 SB. Other than Span, Morneau, Kubel and Harris (who owns Washburn) had good series with the bat.


• Nathan was perfect in his single save opportunity and Guerrier, who gave only one hit in 2.1 innings (0.43 WHIP), showed promise that last season might have just been a fluke

First Series MVP:

Denard Span



First Series Best Pitcher:

Glen Perkins




Next series: 3 games against the White Sox in Chicago. Probable Starters:

Friday: R.A. Dickey vs. Jose Conteras
Saturday: Fransisco Liriano vs. Bartolo Colon
Sunday: Nick Blackburn vs. TBD

On another note, Rochester beat Syracuse 7-4, powered by home runs by Martin, Plouffe, Winfree and Hughes. Interestingly, Tim Lahey was the closer today.

The New Britain game in New Hampshire just started and the Rock Cats are winning 1-0 on the top of the 1st after a Rene Tosoni home run at the first AB of the game. Jay Raiville is pitching.