One Step Forward, One Step Back

With the Indians and [especially] the Tigers struggling lately, the past couple of weeks would have been a perfect time for the Twins to make a big run towards the front of the division. Instead, they've just sort of been staying place, which is frustrating, especially losing 2 of 3 to the Royals.

Once again, Matt Garza had an outstanding performance, only to get no run support. That means that in 4 of the last 5 games the Twins have scored 1 run or less. On Thursday it was the always unbeatable Kyle Davies that shut them down.

And this lack of offensive punch certainly can't be blamed on the fact that Luis Castillo is no longer with the club. His replacement, Alexi Casilla, was the only Twins to have more than one hit.

Even so, the Twins right now are only 5 games behind Detroit, and 6 games behind Cleveland pending their game later Thursday. The pitching appears to be really coming together, as the starters have put together a lot of nice performances lately. Now they just need the hitters to start carrying their weight.

1-run losses are the worst

Not a great way to start this hugely important series with the Tigers... going in, the Twins has to be thinking that winning 2 of 3 at home would be enough to get them within 5 games of the Tigers. Now, they just need to focus on salvaging 1 game of the series.

Thanks to the lack of timely hitting, the Twins have managed to score 2 runs in 2 games... still had their chances to win both.

You can't fault the pitching efforts of either Matt Garza or Johan Santana, who were superb. Garza gave up just 1 unearned run (and had a really nice array of offspeed stuff), and Santana gave up just a manageable 3 runs.

The offense certainly had chances. On Wednesday's game the Twins left 14 runners stranded, including 4 runners left at third base. It was the Twins best hitters that did most of the damage, as Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau were a combined 1/9 with 1 BB, and they left 11 runners on base. It's tough to win like that.

Following Wednesday's game the Twins stand 8 games behind the division-leading Tigers and 6 games behind the Wildcard-leading Indians. The series finale will feature Scott Baker for the Twins going against Jeremy Bonderman. There's still a long way to go in this season, but the Twins can ill afford a sweep.

Paging Matt Garza

After another poor outing from Sidney Ponson, it's not hard to believe that his days as a Twins starter might be numbered. After the Twins bumped the lead to 4-2 in the 5th, things started going south, and by the end Sidney Ponson was only able to pitch 4.2 innings, giving up 6 runs. He only had 2 strikeouts and gave up 2 HR. To the Royals.

Everyone pitching after Ponson struggled as well, but it's still hard not to be disappointed at the effort. This bumps Ponson's ERA to 9.39, and that's with 2 of his starts coming against the Royals and Devil Rays.

Meanwhile in AAA, there are some options. Garza has been a little wild with his control, but he would certainly be in the mix. Kevin Slowey has pitched 11.2 scoreless innings so far this year. Scott Baker just threw 8 shutout innings on Friday night.

In the Majors, Glen Perkins is up with the team and is capable of starting. The options are there. If Ponson struggles like this again, will that be the end of the Ponson Experiment?

Twins Rotation Almost Set

With about a week left before the start of the season, things almost look to be set in the Twins rotation.

The top, of course, will be Johan Santana, the reigning Cy Young Award winner who is firmly established as the best pitcher in the world. After that, it gets a little fuzzy.

At this point, it looks like Boof Bonser will definitely be in the rotation, which is a good thing, because Boof was really solid at the end of last year. Joining him and Santana will likely be Ramon Ortiz and Sidney Ponson. Both were free-agent pickups, both have uninspiring track records. To be perfectly honest, if either of them develop into a reliable 5th starter, I'll be pleased.

After that, it gets even more fuzzy. It looks like the final spot will be either Carlos Silva's or Matt Garza. Silva is the "veteran" that has been getting hammered on the mound, Garza is the guy that has been pitching better, has much more talent and upside, but is young. If you can't tell, I think Garza should get the spot.

Last year Garza was one of the best Minor League pitchers around, and showed flashes of that at the end of the season. Silva, on the other hand, got consistently shellacked en route to an ERA above 6.

In Spring Training, it's been more of the same. Silva has an ERA above 11 in 16.1 IP, Garza has an ERA of 1.50 in 12 IP. When you put it all together, Garza seems like the no-brainer choice to make the rotation. Hopefully that happens.

Don't look back now Detroit

And the lead is 1/2 game! To say the least, this is unbelievable considering the starts that these two clubs had.

But after the Tigers loss to Detroit, and the Twins victory over Boston, the Twins stand 1/2 game behind Detroit for the division and 4.5 games up on Chicago with 11 games left to play.

The story of the game was Justin Morneau, who got his average up to .326 after a 5/5 performance. As Aaron Gleeman writes, Morneau's simply been amazing no matter what date you look from.

Matt Garza was also a bright spot, as he was able to go 5 2/3 solid innings, giving up 3 runs, and picking up the 2nd win of his young career. That was a long enough outing for the rock solid bullpen, who shut the Sox down the rest of the way.

But the game was not all positive. Torii Hunter fouled a ball off his foot, leaving him in pain and forcing him to exit the pain. No one knows yet how long he'll be out, but suffice to say if he's out for any length of time, that's a huge blow. I'm not a huge Hunter guy (as far as a player, he seems like a great guy), but he's been supplying much needed and very solid power in the 6th spot, and it'd be a shame if we lose that now, with 2 weeks left. Let's hope things work out for the best here.

Anyway, in Game 2 of the series, Minnesota will send Boof Bonser to the mound, who's been pretty darn good lately if you haven't noticed. The Sox will send their ace Curt Schilling to the mound, but the way the Twins are playing, it wouldn't surprise me to see them in first place by this time tomorrow.

One of the worst days of the year

For two innings everything appeared to be right with the world. After 2 innings, Francisco Liriano had throw 22 pitches, gotten all 6 batters out, and had struck out 2 batter (both on nasty, nasty sliders), and it looked like he was back to his dominating self.

Then he threw a pitch in the dirt, stood bent at the waist, looking like his left arm was about to fall off, with what we later learned was left elbow pain.

Basically, the worst case scenario. Everything looks great, the rehab goes well, he gets in to start, and can't make it through 30 pitches. And let's just say that the list of pitchers that have had long, productive careers with recurring elbow pain is not a very long one. So not only will Liriano not be back this year, (PURE SPECULATION AHEAD), but I'm worried about next year. And his career. Because an elbow injury is a scary thing.

At the very least, the Twins could have picked him up and gotten the win. Matt Garza certainly gave them that opportunity, throwing 5 2/3 innings of relief and giving up just 1 run, a run he wouldn't have given up if the ump had made the correct call on a stolen base the pitch before. Instead, Dan Haren shut the Twins out over 8 innings, and Huston Street was able to get the save after that.

Then Freddy Garcia goes out and throw 7.2 perfect innings before allowing a hit, and the Sox crushed the Angels. 1.5 games ahead in the Wildcard. 2 games back of the division pending the Tigers game. 10-game roadtrip coming up. Liriano is officially done, and no one is sure yet about Radke.

We still have 1.5 game lead, but things looked a lot better yesterday.

It's been so long I almost forgot what it was called...

Oh yeah, offense. That was nice.

9 runs? Where has this offense been lately? Castillo didn't do anything at the top, but Nick Punto (welcome back!) had a couple of hits, Joe Mauer went 3/4 to increase his lead in the chase for the batting title, and Justin Morneau had a couple of big 2-out hits to get him 3 RBI, and move him into 2nd in the AL with 118 RBI on the year,

On the other side of the coin, things weren't as great as Matt Garza struggled once again. At times, he looks dominant, and shows why he was able to dominate in all levels of the Minors this year (hence, 6 strikeouts in 4.1 IP)... other times, well, it's easy to see he's a young guy. He struggled with the control - tight strike zone or otherwise - and walked 4 batters, which led to his undoing. He finished with 4 ER in the 4.1 IP.

In the pen, Pat Neshek responded nicely with 1.1 scoreless innings to get the win. Meanwhile, Jesse Crain and Juan Rincon seem to be going in the opposite directions... Crain has been excellent for a couple of months now, while Rincon has seen his ERA increase almost a run in about a month to 3.05).

With a comeback win by the Sox, the Twins are basically in the exact same position as they were when this series started a couple of days ago... 4 back of the Tigers and 1/2 game ahead of the White Sox. They need to split these final 2 games at the bare minimum, and if they can win both, well, the division race will officially become a big thing, as the Twins would be only 2 back.

But for now, the Twins just need to focus on Saturday. Boof Bonser vs. Nate Robertson. Be there or be square.

Garza impresses; everyone else does not

We finally got the performance we've all been waiting for from Matt Garza. 7.2 IP, only 2 ER, and 7 strikeouts. He was efficient and in the strike zone, went deep into the game, and struck some guys out.

Only problem: the Twins still lost.

That's because "All-Star" Mark Redman shut them out on 5 hits. Let me repeat: Mark Redman threw a CG Shutout. That lowered Redman's ERA to a stellar 5.47. This would be more depressing if this didn't happen to the Twins often. I swear, throw a junk-ball lefty and you will have success against the Twins lineup.

The Sox won, so that puts the Twins back at 0.5 GB of the Wildcard lead. Today, the Twins will send Boof Bonser to the mound to take on Luke Hudson. He's not a junkball lefty, so that helps. Twins need to win these games that they should, especially at home. Otherwise that series to end the year may not be significant at all.

Gotta love that pitching staff

There are some days, like Tuesday, when a guy will give up 5 HR and it's easy to get frustrated with the staff. Then are days like yesterday, when a young guy throws a great game, and the bullpen does the rest.

Matt Garza got his first Major-League win by throwing 6 solid innings, giving up just 1 unearned run on 5 hits. (Aaron Gleeman has a great writeup on the start) Then the bullpen came in and did their job, to the tune of 3 perfect innings. Meanwhile, the offense wasn't very efficent but they did score 4 runs, and the formula for success was in full effect again.

I know ERA is not a great stat for relievers, but look at these things:

Pat Neshek - 0.81
Dennys Reyes - 0.96
Juan Rincon - 2.44
Joe Nathan - 1.53

Offensively, the 4-5-6 hitters supplied the power and runs, as Mike Cuddyer got 3 hits, Justin Morneau had his 108th RBI of the year, and Torii Hunter hit his 18th HR of the year. That was enough to overcome 10 men LOB for the Twins, which is not good at all.

The White Sox victory means the Twins are still 0.5 GB of the Wildcard, but only 7 out of the division lead. The Red Sox also remain in the hunt at 4 GB of the Wildcard. The rubber match of the series will feature Boof Bonser against Kris Benson in another big game for the Twins... they just have to keep winning series!

Nothing hurt

A loss is never good, but with Chicago and Boston also losing, the Twins remain just a half game behind the White Sox for the Wildcard lead.

But that doesn't mean this isn't disappointing. 3 HR for Nick Markakis? Really? That's basically the story of the game, because when the SP gives up 5 HR, things aren't going well.

The poor performance from Silva brought up an interesting comment from diehard ct twins fan in the comments section:

Looks like the Twins should have put Lohse back in the rotation instead of Silva before. I know Lohse what somewhat of a head case but you can't argue with what he's doing with the Reds. Then again, it is the NL.

When Lohse started this year, he was just ridiculously bad. He was walking a lot of guys, he didn't strike out too many, and had given up a fairly high amount of HR. He was demoted, brought back and put in the pen, did decently well, and then was traded, much to my delight.

In Cincy, all he's done in 5 games (4 starts) is throw 27.1 IP, give up just 5 ER while striking out 26. Is it all because of the NL? Would he have been able to do this for the Twins? Who knows. Baseball is a funny game.

All I know is that at the time Lohse was traded, Liriano was the best pitcher in the game, Johan was Johan, and Radke was solid. Now, we can't get consistent starts from any of the back 3 in the rotation. Hindsight in 20/20, and it might be nice to have Lohse now seeing what's happened, but it was hard to see this coming.

Anyway, time to move on, especially with Matt Garza on the hill tonight against Rodrigo Lopez and the Os. If the Twins are going to make a run, Garza needs to step up and pitch at least somewhat to his potential. He's got great stuff, and in time he'll make a great pitcher, I just hope it's sooner rather than later. But it's hard to talk negative about him, seeing as he's only made 2 Major League starts. Let's hope he gets turned around, and who knows, maybe the Twins can take the Wildcard lead!

About that back of the rotation...

Throughout the year the weakness of the Twins has been the back of the rotation, and that was even before Liriano went down. Baker, Bonser, Lohse, Mike Smith, etc. all tried and pretty much failed.

However, as the season wore on, it looked like we had our ace in the hole - Matt Garza. His Minor League numbers were fabulous, he has great stuff, and it was almost like everyone (myself included) expected him to come up and immediately continue with the domination.

All of that came down with a thud on Friday, as Garza allowed 7 runs in 2 2/3 innings. Granted, it was against a good offensive team in Toronto, but it doesn't help ease any fears about an already think back of the rotation. Boff Bonser starts Saturday, and if he continues to pitch how he has basically all year in the Majors, well, we have a problem.

The White Sox and Red Sox also won, putting the Twins 1.5 games out of the Wildcard just 2 days after they had taken the lead in the race. It's not too unexpected for them to fall back at this point and you can't get too worried, since they're right in it, but it's disheartening to see them claw their way to taking 2 of 3 in Detroit and then come back home and get hammered in 2 stright to Toronto.

Hopefully things pick up in the weekend.

Matt Garza's Minor League Stats

A - 5-1, 1.42 ERA, 53:11 K:BB in 44.1 IP
AA - 6-2, 2.51 ERA, 68:14 K:BB in 57.1 IP
AAA - 3-1, 1.85 ERA, 33:7 K:BB in 34.0 IP

Hopefully he's as good as advertised!