MVN - Most Valuable Network

Twins extend Indians’ misery

Everyone thought the Indians would be a playoff team when they made their 2008 prognostications, but things have not worked out for that team.

After the Indians were swept by the White Sox this week at Chicago, it’s safe to say that they are done. There is going to be a fire sale, which means C.C. Sabathia’s career in Cleveland is over. Sabathia will be traded because he is going to want the same money that Johan Santana got from the Mets in the spring, and the Indians are not going to pay that type of money to him.

Cleveland’s season from hell continues as they lost to the Twins, 12-3, Friday night at the Metrodome. This loss extends the Indians’ losing streak to six games while the Twins extend their winning streak to three in a row. The Twins also won fourteen of sixteen.

Lack of timely hitting, starting pitching, injuries, and the bullpen have been the problem for the Indians all season.

The sixth inning was a story of Cleveland’s season.

The key hits are just not there for them.

Twins starter Livan Hernandez did not start off well in the sixth inning. Ben Francisco hit a leadoff home run off him to cut the Indians’ deficit to 5-3. Then, he gave up a double to Jhonny Peralta and a walk to Shin-Soo Choo with no outs.

The thought was that Hernandez was going to fall apart. It did not happen.

Hernandez found a way to get out of it. He struck out ex-Twin Casey Blake. He faced a long battle with David Dellucci, but he won the battle when Dellucci flied out. Then, he finished it up by forcing Ryan Garko to ground out to third.

The Twins made the Indians pay by scoring a run when the Twins batted in the sixth inning. The Twins took a 6-3 lead.

Then, everything fell apart for the Tribe from there. The Twins scored two runs in the seventh inning, and four runs in the eighth inning.

Indians starter Paul Byrd and Indians relievers Jensen Lewis and Brian Slocum were throwing pitches that were easy for the Twins to hit.

The Indians can’t get the pitches that they need to get outs this season. They give up hits and runs at the wrong time. One gets the feeling that their pitchers expect to lose out there. There is no confidence from anyone on the mound, and it does not help that their hitters are not performing.

The Indians do not have the supreme confidence that the Twins have in winning games. With the Twins, they expect to get hits when they have to and they expect to get out of jams.

This game featured a tale of two teams. The home team is moving up and the road team is moving down.

Look for the Twins take another series by winning at least one more game against the Indians. Sweep is not out of the question too.

Twins give Tigers something to think about

Monday night’s loss was disappointing for the Twins, but the Twins were not losing sleep because the Tigers were trotting out Nate Robertson and Eddie Bonine in the final two games of the series.

With the way the Twins were hitting, they were going to get to those two starters, who do not scare anyone at the plate. The Twins did just that.

The Twins defeated the Tigers, 6-4, on Tuesday night, and they took the rubber game of the series by defeating the Tigers, 7-0, Wednesday afternoon.

On Tuesday night, Robertson put men on base in the first three innings, but the Tigers starter got out of it by the Twins grounding into double plays by three times. Still, it was a matter of time until Robertson would implode.

It happened in the fourth inning when Craig Monroe hit a three-run home run off Robertson, which gave the Twins a 3-1 lead over the Tigers. Robertson gave up five hits in the fifth inning, and the Twins scored three runs in that inning.

Overall, Robertson allowed six earned runs on 11 hits.

Bonine was no better on Wednesday. Everything fell apart for him in the third inning. He gave up 5 runs and 5 hits in that inning. Casey Fossum relieved him to get the final out of the third.

Bonine went 2 2/3 innings while allowing five runs on seven hits and two weeks.

Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski and Tigers manager Jim Leyland can’t be happy with what they are getting out of their #4 and #5 starters.

If the Tigers are going to be a serious player in the AL Central race, they are going to have to find a pitcher that will give the Tigers a chance to win. Justin Verlander and Armando Galarraga are good, but the Tigers need to get at least one more starter to keep up with the White Sox, who have starters that can win every fifth day.

Currently, the Tigers don’t have that. Who knows how much Kenny Rogers has left? Robertson and Bonine are unreliable. It’s hard to believe Dontrelle Willis will be a factor this season.

It won’t be easy either. The Tigers don’t have much to offer in the farm system that teams want. The one guy that could appeal to teams is Rick Porcello, but the Tigers are not going to give him up for a rental gun, and they should not. There are rumors that the Tigers could sign Freddie Garcia, who can help them.

It will be interesting how the Tigers go about this especially in light of what happened in Minneapolis.

Tigers know how to beat Twins’ bullpen

It’s rare that the Twins blow leads, but their locked-down bullpen has had a hard time protecting leads against the Tigers this season.

Prior to Monday night’s game, they blew the lead twice against the Tigers this season, and it resulted to losses.

Monday night, the Tigers got to them for the third straight time this season. The Twins had a 4-1 lead, but Jesse Crain, Dennys Reyes and Matt Guerrier could not get it done as they got hit in this game. The Tigers came from behind to defeat the Twins, 5-4, at the Metrodome to start a crucial three-game series.

This was disappointing because the Twins needed to send a message to the Tigers in the first game of a series with a win. They not only blew a lead, but they wasted a good performance by Glen Perkins, who started for the Twins.

The other two bullpen implosions came in April.

On April 14th, Guerrier and Pat Neshek gave up six runs in the eighth inning as the Twins blew a 9-4 lead and at the end, they took a 11-9 loss to the Tigers at Comerica Park.

On April 15th, the Twins pen did it again. Crain blew a 4-3 lead in the eighth inning. The Tigers scored three runs in that inning to take a 6-4 lead. The Tigers defeated the Twins, 6-5.

In sports, everyone looks at trends.

The trends are that the Twins bullpen just don’t know how to get the Tigers out. When the Tigers find ways to beat the Twins late in the game, it says something and it does not become an accident anymore after three times.

The Tigers always do well against Crain so this was no surprise.

Then again, Crain struggles often. He is great at times, but he is unreliable way too often. It’s a given that he will screw it up. That’s just how it is. The last three years, he tends to get hit hard to the point that he implodes.

There must be better options in the seventh inning. Maybe it’s time for Craig Breslow to get a chance to pitch in the seventh. He has been good. He can’t be any worse than Crain.

Of course, it’s a moot point because Gardenhire has an affection for Crain like he does with Nick Punto so Crain will get the ball at the seventh inning no matter how unreliable he is. It’s too bad.

Guerrier has just not looked good against Detroit all season. The Tigers know how to beat him when he is on the mound. He just does not look confident whenever he faces the Tigers on the mound, and it showed Monday night.

He is going to have to find a way to get it done against them because that’s his role. If the Tigers are in his head based on his frustration on the mound in this contest, then he and the Twins have a problem whenever he faces up against the Tigers.

Of course, it says something about the Tigers’ hitters that they get it done against the Twins’ relievers. It shows how good they are, and how smart they are.

They just know how to ignite an run when they have to. They are dangerous at any inning. They play all nine innings, and they are never out of a game.

It’s not just their stars, but it’s role players like Marcus Thames, Clete Thomas, Ryan Raburn and Matt Joyce that just know how to get the hits that they need.

They have figured it out after starting off bad, and that’s why they have the best shot of dethroning the White Sox.

Still, good pitching beats good hitting, and the Twins pen need to figure it out against Detroit if the Twins want to win the division or the wild-card.

With the way things are going, the Tigers should feel like they got a chance everytime they face a Twins reliever that is not named Joe Nathan.

How can Twins handle July’s schedule?

After Sunday, the fun is over.

Interleague play is done for the season.

The Twins have a new lease on life after inflating their record against National League teams, which is how they had their 10-game winning streak, which was snapped Saturday night. They finished the two and a half week stretch of interleague play with a record of 13-2, which padded their record to 45-37. The Twins are in the AL Central race as they are 1.5 games back behind the White Sox.

Now, here comes reality.

The Twins are back to playing American League baseball, and July’s schedule does not do them any favors.

On Monday night, they start a three-game series with the red-hot Detroit Tigers, who remarkably have come all the way back from the dead to be an above .500 team. The Tigers are finally hitting, and their pitching has been efficient. It was written here that the Tigers were done, and that they would finish the season in last place. Now, everything has worked out and they are primed to make a run.

Then, they face an underachieving Indians team, who still has the talent to win the division, in the weekend.

It gets even harder next week.

The Twins go to a hostile environment at Fenway Park to face the Red Sox, who rarely lose there. They finish the pre-All-Star break by playing the Tigers at Comerica Park.

After the All-Star break, they face the Texas Rangers, who are no slouch at all.

Then, they go out on the road to face the Yankees and the Indians.

They wrap up the month by facing the White Sox at home.

How can the Twins beat them?

Good starting pitching, but that’s a problem there because the Twins’ starters have not fared well against hitting teams all season. The starters have done well lately, but they were doing this against the NL teams. The starters have struggled against AL hitting teams all season. They have given up home runs against them this season. With the Twins facing AL hitting teams in July, this can’t be good for the Twins starters unless they applied what they learn from getting the NL teams out. If they can have that same success against AL teams, then the team may have a special thing going.

One thing going for the Twins is that they have an ace in Scott Baker. If Kevin Slowey can pitch well as he did in his two starts this week (San Diego and Milwaukee), he and Baker could form a 1-2 duo, which is an important ingredient of a championship team. That’s a big if of course.

The hitting will be fine.

The question is starting pitching.

It will be answered by the end of the month. That answer will dictate what the Twins do for the rest of the season.