I was dying to update after the Twins caught fire this past week, but was unfortunately stuck without internet access in Rapid City, covering HS basketball.
While I was gone, the Twins went from 4-8 to 10-9, with most of their regulars getting hot at the plate, and most of their pitchers becoming un-hittable.
Some notes:
Boof Bonser is a lock for the rotation, having pitched 11 scoreless innings in his last three starts.
Apparently, Ron Gardenhire has him penciled in as the No. 5, which is stupid.
He should be the No. 2 behind Johan Santana.
Ramon Ortiz has a 0.75 ERA through three outings. I'm slowly starting to believe he could be a solid starter this year. Keeping my fingers crossed anyway.
Scott Baker has quietly settled down, having cut his ERA in half (though it's still 9.64 - that tells you how bad he was early on). I haven't given up on Baker, and hopefully the team hasn't either.
Kevin Slowey was cut Sunday after allowing three runs in one inning of work. That isn't why he was cut, as the three runs were largely due to cheap Texas-League hits. He'll go to Triple-A and pitch every five days, and I'll make the bold prediction that he makes his first Major League start later this season.
Carlos Silva continues to be up and down. He credited Santana for getting on his case at a recent bullpen session, in which CyTana urged Cheif to "stop thinking about mechanics and just throw."
This is the kind of stuff that makes for good copy in the paper, but it doesn't sit particularly well with me. If Silva's going to be effective this year, it's going to be from working with pitching coach Rick Anderson, not from the Little League wisdom of more talented teammates.
Friend of Twinstown Lee S. takes me to task for dissing Jason Tyner, but I'm going to stick to my guns.
Tyner, who is hitting .167 with just one walk this spring, has a career OPS of .624, which is unfathomably horrible (Braves pitcher Mike Hampton has a career OPS of .646). He's never homered in his career, which in itself isn't a big deal, but if you have a putrid .315 career SLG %, you'd better have better than a .309 OBP.
In fairness, the Twins would not have won the AL Central without him last year, and he showed an impressive knack for clutch hits, even against lefties. You just always had a good feeling when he came to the plate, certainly more so than with Lew Ford.
I think he could be a decent pinch-hitter, and while I'd love to see him hit .312 again this year, I wouldn't count on it.
I've noticed that one of the quickest ways to make Twins fans testy is to rip on fringe players who play hard (though I'm pretty sure they all play hard).
I got tons of emails last year from fans saying something to the effect of, "I can't believe how you keep ripping on Lew Ford, he plays hard and plays the game the right way and blah, blah, my kid loves him, blah, blah, he signed an autograph for my wife, blah, blah."
I don't have anything personal against any of the Twins (except maybe Joe Mauer for being totally boring). I don't like Lew Ford, and I wish the Twins would've released him this off-season, for one reason and one reason alone: He sucks at playing baseball. I'm sure he's a great guy.
These numbers should be enough to make any Twins fan smile.
Justin Morneau - .343
Jason Kubel - .353
Jason Bartlett - .303
Torii Hunter - .333
Rondell White - .300
Josh Rabe - .304
Chris Heintz - .357
Luis Castillo - .481
Michael Cuddyer - .350
Not bad. Especially if you compare some of them to where they were a week ago (below).
Within the next week I'll be putting up my predictions for '07, including a breakdown of each team in the AL Central.
Just as a reminder, last year I predicted the Twins would win the Central, Detroit would be the surprise team of the AL, Cleveland would be the most disappointing team in the AL, and that Justin Morneau would hit 34 homers.
Yes, I'm very smart.
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