Week 3 Review: Minnesota Twins

This is the 4^th edition of my weekly take on the week in review for the Minnesota Twins.

Record for the week of April 15-22: 4-4

Overall record: 8-12

• Don’t jump off a bridge, Twins fans, as tempting as that may be.  And trust me; this is coming from someone who absolutely develops as defeatist attitude when things go south.  Look, I get it.  Another really bad week, and there’s no clear end in sight.  14 road games, a league-low 6 home games.  Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, and Delmon Young are all sick and recovering.   The team has turned from defending AL Central champions into also-rans (and has set the all-time record for consecutive games of scoring 5 of fewer runs at 19).  But fear not: as I prognosticated, the Twins were given no favors with their early season schedule, so a slow start was predictable.  Division titles are rarely lost in April, and the deficit will not be insurmountable so as to prevent the Twins from challenging for the Central once again.  Oh, and the White Sox?  Tied with them.  And Cleveland and Kansas City are outperforming expectations, and figure to come back to the pack over a 162-game campaign.  Pretty much everything has gone wrong for Minnesota to this point.  The law of averages has to kick in at some point, and this Twins figures to perform much better as the season goes along.

The answer at SS for the Birds?

• For those of you (like me) who saw J.J. Hardy’s clutch-hitting start with Baltimore and were wondering aloud “remind me again why we traded him?”, our answer is twofold.  First of all, Hardy played just 101 games for Minnesota last year due to injuries.  Thus, his current stint on the Disabled List is no surprise.  While he played well while healthy, displaying Gold Glove-caliber defense and providing adequate offense out of the #9 spot, the Twins couldn’t live with his oft-injured status.  And secondly, his salary was just too high for a team going into year 1 of Joe Mauer’s massive $23-million-per-year contract extension and needing to save money in other areas.  Hardy is making $5.85 million this season in what is a contract year, while his replacement, Alexi Casilla, is making just $875,000 this year, according to Baseball Reference.  I loved the trade that brought Hardy here, I enjoyed his time as a Twin, and I was disappointed to see him go for what didn’t appear to be much in return from Baltimore.  But in light of his recent trip to the DL, it’s certainly understandable, if not condoned.

Jim Hoey: the power reliever the Twins have been missing?

• Speaking of the return in the trade for Hardy, I got to see reliever Jim Hoey in person on Monday night, and I gotta say, I was extremely impressed with what I saw.  He had a real lively fastball that was clocked at 96-98, and he mixed that in with a changeup in the area of 82-85 mph that completely flummoxed the Baltimore Oriole hitters facing him.  He retired all 4 hitters he faced that night, including escaping a 2-on, 2-out jam after the Orioles had scored 2 runs to cut the Twins’ lead to 3-2.  The Twins have revamped their bullpen constantly in recent weeks due to injury (Kevin Slowey is on the DL) and ineffectiveness (Alex Burnett and Jeff Manship have been replaced by Hoey and Eric Hacker), and it definitely would behoove the team if Hoey can continue to pitch well.  He was not nearly as effective in his last appearance (hits allowed to both hitters he faced), but Hoey has the type of live power arm the Twins direly need in their ‘pen, as I called for in this blog post.  Hoey’s issue has always been control, as his major league stats indicate (23 career walks versus just 24 strikeouts).  If he can command his pitches successfully and consistently, look out.  And of course, if anyone can stabilize a staff and work with young pitchers with potential, it’s Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson, and I look forward to seeing Hoey progress into a go-to late-inning option as the 2011 season rolls along.

Jason Repko, as fine a 4th OF as a team could ask for.

• In case number 2 of “The Twins may have read my blog and listened to my advice,” I had indicated in my post last week that for this team to be more efficient and consistent in scoring runs, they needed to add speed to the lineup and utilize it effectively to  manufacture cheap runs.  That was no more evident than in Saturday’s 10-3 win over Cleveland.  Denard Span’s perfect hitting on a hit-and-run situation put runners on 1^st and 3^rd in the 3^rd inning, helping lead to a 3-run inning.  Jason Repko followed with an infield hit, and then scored from 1^st on a double by Jason Kubel even though ball was cut off in the outfield.  Repko is invaluable as a speedy outfielder with pop off the bench for the Twins, and absolutely can fill in over a short period of time for Delmon Young, who simply doesn’t have that same element of speed and strong defense that Repko brings.  Additionally, Repko laid down a sacrifice bunt that helped facilitate a 2^nd 3-run inning in the 5^th, and the Twins also stole a pair of bases, with the latter coming into score on a sacrifice fly.  The adding of speed to the lineup, combined with the capability of simply doing the little things to win games, played a big difference in today’s win over Cleveland, and will help the Twins going forward as they look to get back into the AL Central race.

The AL Rookie of the Year fave.

• One last note: I watched Jeremy Hellickson, a Rookie of the Year candidate for Tampa Bay, against the Twins last Sunday afternoon, paying particular attention to his pitch selection.  He literally threw nothing but fastballs and changeups until introducing his curveball in the 5^th inning.  His fastball wasn’t especially electric, as it stayed mostly in the 89-90 mph range.  But when combined with a 77-mph changeup, he had Twins hitters flailing.  This kid appears to have good poise and makeup for a young pitcher, and it certainly appears I didn’t make him my ROY pick in vain.  It stands to reason that the Rays made the right choice in trading former Twin Matt Garza in the offseason.

Looking Ahead

• Minnesota caught a huge break with Friday night’s game against Cleveland being rained out, as it allowed one extra day for Justin Morneau to get his strength up enough to return to the lineup following a 5-game absence.  And they capitalized on his return in a huge way, as he was a big reason in the Twins breaking the 5-run mark for the first time this season in the aforementioned blowout win over the Indians.  Cleveland is in town for one more day game for this abbreviated 2-game series, and following Wednesday’s off-day, Tampa Bay’s improved club comes to the Twin Cities for a 3-game set.  The Twins miss Rays ace David Price for the 2^nd consecutive series, but will face Hellickson in Thursday’s matinee game.  It marks the final series of a month filled with AL East matchups, and the Twins are probably excited to get into a more AL-Central-laden part of the schedule.