looking between the lines: four series down

The Twins finished the four first series of the young season, sweeping the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in the Metrodome in a three game series. After 14 games they are 1 game out of first place in the AL Central division, trailing the Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals, while they are leading the last place Cleveland Indians by 2.5 games. Here are my observations about the team at this time point:

• A three game home series facing the assortment of AAA and bullpen arms of the Angels was a shot in the arm for the bats. Jason Kubel had 2 great days back to back, being the third player ever to hit for the cycle and completing it with a game winning grand slam. I am sure that in the long term, this will be a career highlight for Kubel; however for the short term, even more important might be the fact that the next day Garderhire started him against a LHP at DH and he delivered


• Kevin Slowey might be back. He pitched 7 innings in the middle game of the series having only very few bad pitches, one of which was hit for a home run by Torii Hunter. Glen Perkins has been very surprising this season. The Perkins of 2009 so far is different than the Perkins of 2008: He apparently worked on his change up and slider this off-season and unlike last year, he has complimentary pitches to his fastball. His slider still needs work, but his change up is very effective. And when he is down on the count he does not throw fastballs in the middle of the plate like he did in 2008. This allows him to get through innings with fewer pitches and pitch deeper into the games


• This series brought the first transaction of the young season, the acquisition of Jose Morillo off waivers and the DFAing of Phillip Humber. After the first appearance of Morillo in the ninth inning yesterday, where he pitched a scoreless inning allowing one hit and striking out one, while his fastball was between 96 and 98 mph, it might be safe to assume that the Twins will not miss Mr Humber much this season


• Every position player got into the hit parade the last 2 days. I will post some thoughts about the catching situation tomorrow during the first off day of the season, but Jose Morales had a very good series, Delmon Young and Carlos Gomez not only hit the ball but worked counts out for walks and Brendan Harris so far is putting Ted Williams-like numbers in limited duty, which seems to be deservingly increasing


• How sustainable is this? There are some good signs: The Twins are two games ahead of their 2008 pace so far (there were 6-8 after 14 games in 2008) without the complete rotation gelling, without all relievers bringing out top notch performances, with Joe Crede, Mike Cuddyer and Alexi Casilla lagging at the plate and with Joe Mauer in Florida. I think that the Twins are in good shape. If they finish the month of April within 1-2 games from the division lead, they will be a force to be reckoned with, since the bench and the pen is better than last season and the rotation seems to be better just by the fact that Perkins is pitching like a different pitcher. Time will tell, but so far so good

Position Player MVP of the series with the Angels:

Jason Kubel
14 AB, 8 H, 5 R, 7 RBI, 0 BB, 1 K, 1 HR (hit for the cycle)



Best Pitcher of the series with the Angels:

Glen Perkins
8 IP 4 H 1 ER 1 BB 4 K

looking between the lines: the first three series in the books.

The Twins finished their first three series of the 2009 season and are sitting with a 4-7 record in the 4th place of the AL Central, having won a single game more than the Cleveland Indians. This is a disappointing start, and all the parts of the team (Starting rotation, bullpen and bats) have contributed equally. Let's look closely, trying to pick possible glimmers of hope:

• This team is 2 games behind of the 2008 team, when the Twins were 6-5 after 11 games. On the other hand, in 2008 in their first 3 games at Chicago, they also went 1-2, in their first 4 home games with Toronto they went 0-4 and in their 3 home games with Seattle they went 3-0. Based on those individual series breakdowns, the 2009 Twins are keeping pace with the 2008 Twins who won 88 games. And they are doing in without Joe Mauer, who is slated to return as early as the Cleveland series next week, after starting rehabilitation with the Ft. Myers Miracle next Monday


• Crain and Nathan can anchor the back of the bullpen. Despite the fact that the other members of the bullpen have struggled, Crain and Nathan have been performing great, when they got the call.


• Morneau is up to a great start. He is hitting .341/.348/.568 with 2 home runs and 8 runs driven in and if he continues close to this pace, he will have another MVP year


• Span has been the Span of 2008 and not the Span of Spring Training 2009. He has been hitting .293/.408/.390 and leads the team in stolen bases with 3. If he continues close to this pace, he will provide the team with a reliable pace setter


• The rotation will rebound, and the rebound has already started. Liriano pitched like the August of 2008 Liriano yesterday and not like the April 2008 Liriano. Perkins has been brilliant in his 2 starts. I am confident that Blackburn, Slowey and Baker will be back to form soon; hopefully the first two as soon as the Angels series starting today. Part of it might be the inexperience of Morales in calling a game. With Morales behind the plate, opponents bat .337/.388/.546 off the Twins' pitchers. With Redmond behind the plate, opponents bat .256/.315/.422 off the Twins' pitchers. This suggest that with the upcoming return of Mauer, the pitching numbers will improve, since in 2008 opponents had practically the same OPS against Twins' pitcher with either Mauer or Redmond behind the plate.

Position Player MVP of the series with Toronto:

Justin Morneau
17 AB, 8 H, 3R, 1 RBI, 0 BB, 4 K



Best Pitcher of the series with Toronto:

Glen Perkins
8 IP 7 H 2 ER 1 BB 4 K

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.