Lackluster openers are disproportionately disappointing, particularly when watched indoors on the nicest day of the year so far. At times like these it would be wise for distraught Twins fans to keep in mind former Baltimore manager Earl Weaver’s famous quip: “This ain’t a football game. We do this every day.” Or at least pretty much every day for the next six months, and tomorrow is the first day of the rest of our lives. Who, really, do you want taking the mound on the first day of the rest of your life? If you’re me, you want Johan Santana, and you’ll take comfort in the fact that –God willing, and I’ve no doubt, based on the preseason hosannas our local club has received from the national sporting press, that God is a Twins fan– Santana will go to mound for the Twins more than thirty times. I also have little doubt that Brad Radke won’t again make the mistake of challenging a guy like Richie Sexson with a 3-1 fastball.
Sexson’s two bombs were doubtless great fun to behold for the sold-out crowd at Safeco Field, but the game didn’t produce much in the way of memorable moments for rooters gathered around televisions in Twins Territory. It says something about the generally lackluster performance from the Twins that the moments that stand out most clearly from today’s game were a defensive gem from Luis Rivas, Jason Bartlett’s single to right to score the game’s only run, a nice diving catch by Jacque Jones, and, most strikingly, Joe Mauer’s stolen base and his incredible peg to nail Ichiro on his stolen base attempt.
That the Twins managed only five hits against a crafty geezer –the 56-year-old Jamie Moyer– who has the fastball of the average high school ace is the sort of thing that fans of a gloomy temperament (or those who recall last year’s offensive struggles) could easily interpret as a bad omen. Right now, however, I’d recommend that we all reserve judgement, at least until Wednesday.
I frankly don’t know what to make of all the respect being shown the Twins by baseball’s punditry this spring. It’s certainly odd and, at least as far as I can recall, unprecedented. It’s also a complete surprise, really, and makes me more than a tad bit uneasy. We are, after all, talking about a Twins team that essentially replaced several established –if occasionally disappointing– veterans with younger and almost entirely unproven players, and yet somehow many of the experts are perceiving a club that has improved enough to win the World Series.
Let’s see: the Yankees added Randy Johnson, Carl Pavano, and Jaret Wright (who was 15-8 with a 3.28 ERA last season but who will nonetheless start the year in the New York bullpen); the new-look Twins, meanwhile, feature a rookie shortstop, a 21-year-old catcher who missed most of his rookie season due to a knee injury that continues to be a source of concern, a guy playing third who has bounced all over the field the last several seasons and has yet to deliver on his considerable promise, and a fifth starter who hasn’t been healthy or productive since 9-11. And yet the Twins are suddenly somehow better than the Yankees, a team they haven’t been able to beat for years and that has a payroll almost four times that of their own?
It’s a nice fantasy, and I’ll cling to it, but I also don’t get it. Where the hell did all this Twins-love come from? And how can I make it go away? Picking the Twins to win the World Series should be the job of optimistic and perhaps hopelessly-deluded fans. We don’t need the experts on our side. With the possible exception of professional football and the odd branch of sociology the experts are almost always wrong.
That’s not to say I don’t think this is going to be a very good team. I’m more than happy to go out on a limb and predict they’ll win the Central again. But a World Championship? Good lord, I don’t want to predict that.
We all know that things can go wrong. Things can go very wrong. Look at last year’s Chicago Cubs. Or the Florida Marlins, Royals, Diamondbacks, or Mariners. I don’t think that’s going to be the fate of the 2005 Twins, but an awful lot of things have to go right for them to be better than last year’s team and take another step deeper into the postseason.
I don’t have a whole lot of questions about the Twins’ pitching staff. Santana may not be as dominant as he was last year; Radke could revert to merely average (and still win more games). Joe Nathan might get hurt, struggle with his control, or get knocked around a little more frequently that in ’04. I don’t worry about any of that, though. The team’s pitching is deep, and I think Rick Anderson is the smartest pitching coach in baseball. If Anderson finally gets through to Kyle Lohse and gets him to trust his offspeed stuff and mix in the occasional curveball and changeup with his fastball and slider I really believe Lohse could lead this club in innings pitched and win 16-18 games. Over the off-season I heard umpire Tim Tschida say that Lohse has the best pure stuff of anybody on the staff, a perception that I also heard often last year from visiting scouts. I know that Anderson and Ron Gardenhire both believe that Lohse is capable of being an anchor of the staff.
Joe Mays might be healthy. Carlos Silva might be better, or he might be worse. The bottom line, though, is that the Twins have the luxury of doing a lot of mixing and matching with their staff without much jeopardizing the overall quality. The best case scenario is that we never have to see Scott Baker or any of the other minor league prospects in Minnesota until September, but it’s nice nonetheless to know they’re there.
I don’t, unfortunately, have as much faith in the organization’s approach to developing hitters, and I base this on the team’s offensive performance last year and their relatively poor showing in spring training this season. During today’s opener the team didn’t seem to have a consistent mindset at the plate. They looked tentative or confused, much as they did for most of last season. Even Joe Mauer, who clearly is willing to take pitches, looked uncharacteristically confused when he struck out looking at three straight fastballs from reliever Julio Mateo in the eighth. We’ve all been waiting for several years now –for more than several years, in fact– for this club to break out offensively, and for veterans like Torii Hunter and Jacque Jones, the purported team leaders, to show some consistent production, and this is the year at least one of them has to really step up.
I think it’s ridiculous that someone like Peter Gammons is including Mauer on his list of potential MVP candidates, and I say that as someone who loves Mauer, recognizes his potential, and would like nothing better than to see him deliver on that potential. But for crying out loud, let’s give the kid a chance to stay healthy and rack up some at-bats before we start annointing him as the team’s savior.
I think this is the season that hitting coach Scott Ullger has to start feeling a little heat. He unquestionably has the deepest, most talented core of hitters he’s had to work with during his stint with the team, and he needs to deliver some results or risk surely unwanted comparisons with former pitching coach Dick Such.
Even another Central title isn’t the given it might seem. I think even more interesting than the Twins consensus pick as one of baseball’s best teams is the appearance of the Indians on a number of the pundit’s lists as the AL wild card team. Apparently the perception of the AL Central as the worst division is baseball is rapidly changing. I still think Kansas City and Chicago will be dogs, but you absolutely never know what to expect from the White Sox. I don’t suppose, however, that their new small-ball approach will be much more effective than their old reliance on power.
The Indians will be better, and the only real question is how much better? I’m not going to pretend to have any idea. The Tigers are the team that actually fascinates me a little bit. They’ve got a tremendous manager and coaching staff, a group of young pitchers who look poised to take big steps, and they’ve spent a lot of money (and fairly wisely, as far as baseball spending goes) the last couple years. They were a hard-luck club last year, and better than their final record showed. They were 29 games better than their disastrous 2003 season, and could have been a whole lot better than even that if you consider their 12-27 record in one-run games in ’04. It wouldn’t surprise me to see the Tigers hanging around the top of the division all season, and taking a run at the Twins and Indians if either of them falters.
That’s as far out on a limb as I’m going to go right now. I’ll try to touch briefly on the other divisions the rest of this week.
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