Bad starting pitching. Bad relief pitching. Bad clutch hitting. Bad defense. An ugly crowd. A loss to a bad team that was starting a bad pitcher. And it all happened the day after we thought the season had turned around. So where does one start?
In cases like these, I think it's important to prioritize, don't you? Otherwise we're likely going to lose our focus. So which of the above should we start with? I'm going to go with the fact that 60% of the starting rotation has been terrible for at least a month. To be sure, that's overshadowing other issues, but like I said: priorities.
Is terrible too strong a word? Let's see:
- Since June 1st, Scott Baker has posted a 6.08 ERA, plus, he might be hurt. Terrible might be too strong in that case, but certainly "scary" is in play.
- Since June 13th, Kevin Slowey has posted an 8.78 ERA as a starting pitcher. He's also given up five or more runs in all but one of his starts. That's pretty close to terrible.
- And since June 1st, Nick Blackburn has posted a 9.87 ERA, and hasn't lasted more than 4 innings in five of his nine starts.
So can someone PLEASE tell me why I keep hearing sportswriters tell me that the Twins need an ace pitcher, no matter how much he costs next year? Or that this it isn’t worth the (never-defined) cost to pick up a Ted Lilly, Brett Myers, Ben Sheets or even Jarrod Washburn? Was Yohan Pino too high a price to pay last year for Carl Pavano?
This is silliness. I understand that, way back on April 1st, one might have concluded that it made sense to target an ace pitcher. But for the better part of a month, 60% of the rotation has been throwing (up) an 8ish ERA. That’s a pretty good recipe for losing about 60% of your games, which this team has.
Acquiring one or even two average arms would be a significant upgrade, just like adding an adequate Brian Duensing would be an immediate upgrade. To focus on a couple of premium names smells more of laziness than anything based in reality.
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5 comments:
"These aren’t terrible pitchers - they're just pitching terribly. I have no doubt that they'll turn it around eventually. But it isn't clear that it's going to happen this season, and it isn't clear it is going to happen in the major leagues."
If that's the case, doesn't it mean they're terrible pitchers until they show otherwise? Were you one of the online guys pushing Baker/Slowey/Blackburn? I remember a lot of stuff in that view in general when Santana left.
Oh and Garza.
Unless the Twins are making out on their new digs better than they thought they would, the only Ace pitcher available is Oswalt and no one sees that happening. Lilly, Haren et. al. don't look much better to me than what's here considering they pitch to pitchers.
While control is the fundamental (emphasis on Mental) issue at hand with the Twins staff, I wonder if part of the problem is their pitching profiles. Baker and Slowey are separated by 2 mph on their fast balls but both are "pitch to contact, flyball guys". Pavano and Blackie again the same style with a Sinker, albeit one has a sense of purpose on the mound. Liriano is the only strikeout pitcher we have and he's different by default being a Lefty.
My point is that we seem to be developing a series of Brad Radke style pitchers, giving the opposition nearly the same look night after night. Without following the minors as closely as Seth and others, it seems they draft pitchers that are safe and likely to project as less of an injury risk* (see Zumaya, Joel).
Balfour, Liriano, Neshek, Nathan all had significant arm injuries with the Twins,with Pat being the only one that didn't bring the heat. Which would you rather have a staff that stays intact and mediocre, or roll the dice on a guy or two that could flame out or have a years like the F-Bomb in 2006?
King of the run-on sentence,
Shannon
Your solution seems to be one of two options:
* Keep pitching these three people and hope they get their act together.
Or * Bring in three new pitchers! If can bring in an Ace that means we'll take care of one of the problems. We should've made the Lee deal and the performances since shows it was obvious. Smith was too chicken to do that!
Walter Hanson
Minneapolis, MN
"So can someone PLEASE tell me why I keep hearing sportswriters tell me that the Twins need an ace pitcher, no matter how much he costs next year? Or that this it isn’t worth the (never-defined) cost to pick up a Ted Lilly, Brett Myers, Ben Sheets or even Jarrod Washburn?"
IMO, it depends on what your end goal is? If the goal is simply to get by the White Sox and Tigers, then Brett Myers will work fine. If the goal is to get past the Yankees, then Oswalt is the Astros pitcher the Twins need. My two cents, the new stadium has raised the bar on what local writers expect from the Twins.
The question I'd ask in return is do you need a Lilly, Sheets or Myers to pass the White Sox, given how much easier our schedule gets and how difficult there's becomes?
I think it comes down to, would you rather dominate your division regularly or go/win a world series once or twice and mediocre the rest of the time. Kind of like picking the Indians during the mid 90's or the Florida Marlins franchise.
If we get Morneau healthy and everyone at least plays to par, this is the most complete offense we have seen in a long time. If we can pick up an Ace and with Liriano as a near ace, it would be nice to stop being a one and done playoff team. It's not a bad thing to have higher expectation, especially with a higher payroll and new stadium. The AL central won't be this easy forever.
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