Nick Nelson

[ATTACH=CONFIG]814[/ATTACH]After missing a couple games due to the birth of his child, Josh Willingham returned to the Twins lineup on Sunday and immediately made his presence felt, delivering a two-run triple in his first at-bat to set the tone in a 7-4 Twins victory. Willingham finished the day 3-for-5 with a double and a single in addition to the three-bagger, raising his OPS to an eye-popping 1.163. The left fielder has hit safely in 17 of 19 games as a Twin while collecting more extra-base hits (13) than singles (11). He has already hit three balls out of Target Field. He has absolutely obliterated left-handed pitching – he's slugging .863 against southpaws after jumping all over Bruce Chen on Sunday – making him an ideal fit between Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. In short, Willingham has thus far been every bit the hitter that the Twins were hoping for, and he's quickly making people forget about the man he was signed to replace. Sure, Michael Cuddyer's grin is missed around the ballpark, and he's off to a nice start in Colorado, hitting .289/.349/.500 with eight doubles and a pair of homers. But Willingham's first month as a Twin, which won't be complete until the finish of Monday night's game in Los Angeles, matches up favorably against any month Cuddyer had during his 11-year tenure in Minnesota. Consider that Cuddy never posted a monthly OPS above 1.047 (that mark was recorded in May of 2009), which is more than 100 points short of where Willingham currently sits. Of course, plenty of caveats apply to the new outfielder's phenomenal April. It's been a particularly small sample size, even for a single month, at just 19 games and 81 plate appearances. He's also a traditionally quick starter with a history of slowing down as the season progresses, so we'll surely see a few slumps come along to even things out. For now, though, Willingham is erasing any concerns that existed about his age, his health and his ability to hit for power in the new home park. His consistency has been a breath of fresh air for a team that hasn't seen much. In a season where plenty has gone wrong, I'm happy to embrace one of the few things that's gone completely right.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]738[/ATTACH]The Twins have played 18 games this year, and Joe Mauer has been in the starting lineup for every single one. That's right – you might not have noticed, but the embattled catcher has not taken a day off this season after missing half of the 2011 campaign due to various ailments. This is the longest Mauer has even gone into a season without stopping to rest, and it's not like the early schedule has been particularly forgiving, with only one day off and plenty of travel. Granted, Mauer has been catching much less frequently than normal -- he's been behind the plate for only 10 games -- but nevertheless, this iron man stands in stark contrast to the guy who last year drew the ire of media, fans and reportedly even some teammates for his inability or unwillingness to stay on the field. It seems that No. 7 is making a statement. Fortunately, his bat is starting to back up that message. Mauer stumbled out to a slow start, batting .242 with a .675 OPS and nearly as many GIDP (4) as RBI (5) through Minnesota's first nine games. Since the start of the Yankees series, however, Mauer is hitting .382/.475/.471 with three doubles and five walks. He's stopped putting everything on the ground and he's even stolen a couple bases – an indication that his legs are feeling pretty good. He's struck out just three times in his past 46 plate appearances. Mauer's overall production hasn't been extraordinary, but it's extremely encouraging to see him pushing his batting average up over .300 and consistently taking quality at-bats. April is historically one of his quieter months, so if he can continue to heat up as the weather does the same, he could find himself once again grouped with the league's top hitters. The Twins have already had plenty of things go wrong this year, but getting Mauer back on track was always the top priority. It appears that he's well on his way, and Ron Gardenhire deserves credit for moving him around and keeping him fresh enough to take the field each day.

Francisco Liriano was tagged with a loss Sunday as he allowed five runs over five innings, handing out four walks while throwing just 47 of 86 pitches for strikes. It qualified as his best start of the season. Through four turns, Liriano sits with an 11.02 ERA, 2.28 WHIP and 12-to-13 strikeout-to-walk ratio over 16 2/3 innings. Only 57 percent of his pitches are finding the zone, which is the same rate he finished with in 2011. He was being counted on this year to rebound and lead the rotation, but instead he's been its biggest problem. Given that he's shown no meaningful signs of improvement over these first four starts, the Twins are undoubtedly taking a look at their options. I've been one of Liriano's staunchest defenders, but even I wouldn't fault the team for bumping him to the bullpen until he figures out how to throw strikes. The left-hander seems oddly ambivalent about the situation, considering how much it impacts his livelihood. Pitching his way out of the rotation in the season preceding his first foray into free agency? He stands to cost himself many millions. It's a tough thing for the Twins to have to do, but his abysmal performance is giving them little choice but to consider making a move. This is hardly an ideal situation for the club. Their starting pitching depth is already stretched thin with Scott Baker gone for the year, and while Anthony Swarzak has been relatively effect as a swing man, that's the role he's best suited for and his outing last week against the Yankees was an example of why he shouldn't be starting regularly. Brian Duensing and Matt Maloney, like Swarzak, are pitchers with a history of starting who are better suited for relief roles. You could make a case that Scott Diamond is banging on the door in Triple-A, as he's 4-0 with a 1.07 ERA and 18-to-5 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 25 1/3 innings over his first four starts in Rochester. Of course, the 25-year-old Diamond was also one of the Twins' early cuts in spring training after pitching quite poorly in big-league stints last year. People shouldn't get overly worked up over four good Triple-A starts from the lefty. He's putting up essentially the same peripherals now as he did last year, when he went 4-14 with a 5.56 ERA for Rochester. He has stranded over 90 percent of base runners up to this point, which is beyond unsustainable. If called up, Diamond won't fool many hitters, but he'll at least throw strikes and might be able to hold his own thanks to a solid grounder rate. A complete turnaround from Liriano might be the only way for the Twins to climb into contention, because they're destined to wallow in mediocrity with a rotation full of soft-tossing contact pitchers, but it's hard to hold out hope for such a reversal from Frankie when he's looking every bit as bad as he did for basically the entire 2011 season. At this point, replacing him with a guy who has "No. 5 starter" written all over him is beginning to look like a palatable option. That's bad news for the Twins, and it's worse news for Liriano's bank account. [ATTACH=CONFIG]707[/ATTACH]

* It's funny how the timing works out sometimes. On Monday, I wrote a post here discussing the offense's struggles, noting that they stemmed largely from a lack of production from Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. At that point, both lineup cornerstones had contributed minimally, which was a big reason the Twins were averaging just 3.1 runs over their first nine games. My conclusion: "It's too early to panic with either of these players, but up to this point they haven't really shown signs that they're ready to reverse course after dismal 2011 campaigns. It would be awfully nice if they could begin doing so this week in New York." Sure enough, the M&M boys answered the call in the Big Apple. In the four-game series, the tandem combined to go 11-for-27 with three doubles and three homers. Mauer started lifting the ball and Morneau generally took much better at-bats. Not coincidentally, the Twins averaged 5.5 runs and came away with their most successful series in the Bronx in over a decade. Obviously the turnaround had nothing to do my post, but like I said, it's funny how these things work out sometimes. * In a similar vein, I shot out the following tweet during Wednesday night's game after Matt Capps served up a home run to Derek Jeter: "Matt Capps has struck out one of the 19 batters he's faced this year. #WhyIsHeClosing" Naturally, Capps proceeded to immediately strike out Curtis Granderson before retiring Mark Teixeira on a deep fly to close out a one-run victory. Yet, in this case, the point still stands. While he's managed to convert all three of his save chances thus far, Capps' inability to miss bats is a recipe for disaster in the ninth inning. [ATTACH=CONFIG]678[/ATTACH]I'll be honest: I'm not convinced that whatever arm ailment was plaguing the right-hander last summer has gone away. In my mind, there were two clear indicators that something was wrong with Capps last year: A) A decrease in velocity. His fastball went from averaging 93.6 MPH in 2009 and 94.0 MPH in 2010 to 92.9 in 2011. A huge drop in strikeout rate. Probably not totally unrelated to the dashed velo, but Capps went from striking out 18.7 of the batters he faced in the first six seasons of his big-league career (including 19.3 percent in 2010) to just 12.4 percent in 2011. So far this year, Capps is averaging 92.6 MPH with his fastball and has struck out 9.5 percent of the batters he's faced after fanning six of 51 in spring training. He has only pitched five innings thus far, so the small sample caveat obviously applies in a big way, but these are troubling signs for a guy who was rendered ineffective as closer last year by an injury that was not addressed in any way. Hopefully he responds to my harping on these issues in the same way Mauer and Morneau did. * In the grand scheme of things, it's tough to be too upset about the Twins' current 4-9 record. Obviously the season-opening sweep in Baltimore was beyond ugly, but since then the Twins have gone 4-6 against three elite teams. They won a series at home against a very good Angels club and split in New York against their longtime tormenters. While the Twins weren't able to come up with a win against the Rangers, they were generally competitive in that series and Texas has been essentially unstoppable this year -- they're now 11-2 after wiping out the Tigers on Thursday night. If the Twins are still only five games under .500 when they come out of this treacherous opening stretch, they'll be in decent position going forward. Of course, if they don't start pitching better, that's all moot.

After watching their lineup get decimated by injuries last season, the Twins were hoping they'd have better luck keeping position players healthy in the new campaign. So far, so good in that regard. There have been no broken bones, no bilateral leg weakness, no reemergence of concussion symptoms. Unfortunately, pitching has been a different story. The Twins lost Joel Zumaya, their projected top right-handed setup option, and Scott Baker, their potential No. 1 starter, before either threw a pitch in the regular season. Nick Blackburn will miss at least his next start due to shoulder soreness and Glen Perkins has been shut down temporarily due to a strained forearm. These injuries are especially unfortunate in that they are hitting players at the top of the depth chart rather than the bottom. Baker, Zumaya, Perkins and Blackburn are established MLB talents that the Twins were counting on to carry weight on a questionable staff. Attempting to fill holes with the same marginal pitchers who were rejected during spring training isn't likely to pay dividends. Instead, the Twins should take advantage of an opportunity afforded to them by their status as a retooling American League cellar-dweller. Up until the end of April, waiver claim priority is dictated by last year's records, meaning that the Twins get first dibs on any player waived by an AL club. At the beginning of May, the waiver order determinant flips over to this year's records, but the Twins should remain near the top of the list at that point unless they start rattling off wins over the next couple weeks. This is an auxiliary benefit of Minnesota's excessive losing in 2011 and early in 2012 that should not be overlooked. At this point in the season, many intriguing names tend to pass through the waiver wire as teams make early roster adjustments. [ATTACH=CONFIG]652[/ATTACH]There simply aren't many pitchers on the Twins' staff that Terry Ryan should be unwilling to expose to waivers if it means making room for a young hurler with some upside. Two such examples that have been discussed on the Twins Daily forum recently are Rich Thompson of the Angels and Michael Bowden of the Red Sox. Thompson, 27, is a right-hander who posted a 3.00 ERA and 9.33 K/9 rate for Los Angeles last year, though a decrease in velocity this spring contributed to his being designated for assignment. Bowden is only 25 and was a Baseball America Top 100 prospect in three consecutive seasons from 2007-09. These are just two examples of players with more ability than numerous members of Minnesota's current staff, and there are bound to be more hitting the wire in the coming weeks. The Twins certainly aren't in a position to be looking for short-term bullpen fixes, but if they can bring in a young player with a chance to fill a need for years to come, that would be a big win.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]642[/ATTACH]Pat Borzi of MinnPost wrote a column last week suggesting that the current iteration of the Twins lacks heart. He drew a comparison to the 2002 team, which was being celebrated during the opening series at Target Field, stating that it's "hard to imagine this roster, especially the younger players, clawing and scrapping like their counterparts from 10 years ago." I don't know about all that, but I would say this team has been suffering from the absence of the heart of its lineup, as the No. 3 and 4 hitters have been largely invisible early in the season. Last Thursday's game was one that harkened back to the good old days, with Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau both homering and carrying the team to victory. Not coincidentally, it was by far the best day the Twins have had offensively. Outside of that game, however, Mauer and Morneau are a combined 12-for-57 (.211) with two extra-base hits in eight contests. There are a number of reasons that the Twins have scored three or fewer runs in seven of their nine games, but the silence from the M&M boys stands out distinctly. The lineup needs those two producing in order to function, and thus far neither player has done much of anything (other than staying on the field) to quell the concerns that surrounded them entering the campaign. Mauer's plate approach has been fine, as he's been taking good at-bats and drawing walks, but that was also true last year. Outside of his home run last Thursday he hasn't been hitting the ball with authority. One of the most troubling underlying trends in his disappointing 2011 campaign was a career-high 55.4 percent grounder rate (and an accompanying career-low 21.5 percent fly ball rate); he's now put over 60 percent of balls in play in the dirt this year after grounding out in both of his non-walk plate appearances Sunday (including his league-leading fourth GIDP). It's too early to draw definitive conclusions but thus far Mauer is exhibiting the same flaws that principally contributed to a .355 slugging percentage last season. This raises concern that he either: A) isn't as strong and healthy as we'd like to believe, or has fundamentally changed as a hitter. I don't know which would be worse. Mauer could still be a decent hitter with the elevated grounder rate but he won't be a game-changing offensive force and he'll continue to kill rallies with frequent twin killings. Hopefully as the season progresses he can start lifting the ball more frequently. Morneau's issues at the plate have been more worrisome, because unlike Mauer he's looked flat-out overmatched. After fanning in three of his four at-bats on Sunday, the designated hitter has 10 strikeouts against two walks in 37 plate appearances. That's a whiff rate of 27 percent -- a sizable uptick from his 15 percent career rate. The main problem is that Morneau has been far too aggressive. He's swinging at 41.5 percent of pitches outside of the zone (career rate: 33.6 percent) and 55.4 percent of all pitches (career rate: 47.5 percent). When he's going good, Morneau patiently works the count to his favor and capitalizes on mistakes. Too often this year he's been falling into holes and chasing pitchers' pitches. The Canadian can still crush the ball when he makes good contact, as demonstrated by his two doubles in Baltimore and his prodigious blast to right field on Thursday, but his pitch recognition and reactions are not up to snuff. These were noticeable deficiencies for him last April as well, and unfortunately injuries cropped up and took a toll before he had much chance to prove that he could overcome them. The hope is that Morneau's lack of sharpness at the plate is more attributable to rust – due to playing irregularly since his July 2010 concussion – rather than the injury itself. If he can stay healthy and on the field we'll see how the quality of his at-bats improves. Personally, I get the sense that Morneau tends to get in his own head and that bad swings are stewing while he sits on the bench, causing him to press. I'll be interested to see if playing in the field, which he'll apparently start doing this week, helps his approach. It's too early to panic with either of these players, but up to this point they haven't really shown signs that they're ready to reverse course after dismal 2011 campaigns. It would be awfully nice if they could begin doing so this week in New York. The Twins aren't going to win many games if they're not scoring runs in bunches, and this offense is going to have a tough time finding a pulse with the two players who comprise the heart of the lineup flatlining.

I wasn't in attendance at Monday's home opener, but by all accounts Target Field was mostly lifeless during a 5-1 snoozer that dropped the home team to 0-4 on the season. Through four games, the Twins have scored six runs and haven't held a lead at any point. The brutal start is making it tough for fans to generate any kind of enthusiasm following a 99-loss campaign in which this type of dreadful play was all too common. It's easy to overreact in situations such as this – consider that four games is but 1/40th of the total schedule and the Twins could conceivably be back at .500 by the end of the week – but no one shoudl be blamed for feeling a sense of alarm. After all, the Twins have been soundly defeated four straight times and we haven't even seen any of their true weaknesses tested. We haven't seen Carl Pavano offer his mid-80s arsenal to a high-powered lineup. We haven't seen this patchwork bullpen try to protect a slim lead. We haven't seen these fielders forced to make tough, heady plays with a game on the line. The offense, widely considered the club's strongest unit entering the season, has been abysmal through these first four games, preventing the Twins from even having a chance to compete. The good news is that it's not going to last. Eventually the lineup is going to awaken and start producing enough to take some leads. Will the pitching staff be able to protect those leads on a consistent basis, though? That's where the uncertainty truly lies on this roster. It's easy to lose sight of it with the bats in an ongoing slumber, but run prevention is the greatest long-term challenge for the Twins this year. Pitching hasn't lost the Twins any games thus far. It hasn't had a chance to. Once the offense picks up (which it surely will, at least to some degree) we'll see whether these hurlers – and the defenders behind them – can answer the call and do what it takes to get on the winning track and make fans forget about this season-opening slump. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little scared to find out. [ATTACH=CONFIG]572[/ATTACH]

In their opening series against the Orioles, the Twins didn't pitch especially well and they played some horrible defense. But without question, the story of the weekend was a complete lack of offense against a Baltimore staff that led the majors in runs allowed last year. Despite their late surge with the bats in spring training, the Twins looked totally unprepared for the start of the season, as a mediocre trio of starters were made to look like stars. The lineup tallied only two run-scoring hits over the entire weekend (both from Josh Willingham). They never scored before the seventh inning and never came close to taking a lead. It would be one thing if the season-opening slump could be attributed to tough match-ups, but Baltimore's top three are about as vanilla as you're going to find in the league. Take a look at their respective numbers from last year: Jake Arrieta: 119.1 IP, 5.05 ERA, 93/59 K/BB, 1.46 WHIP Tommy Hunter: 84.2 IP, 4.68 ERA, 45/15 K/BB, 1.36 WHIP Jason Hammel: 170.1 IP, 4.76 ERA, 94/68 K/BB, 1.43 WHIP Now, it's not like there's no talent in that group – Arrieta, in particular, was legitimately nasty on Friday – but to come away from a three-game series with 15 hits and five runs is a major let-down and a wasted opportunity. The Twins won't be getting a chance to swing at mediocre pitching again for quite a while. With the Angels and Rangers set to come into town this week, here are the next six starters the Twins are slated to face, and their numbers from last year: C.J. Wilson: 223.1 IP, 2.94 ERA, 206/74 K/BB, 1.19 WHIP Jered Weaver: 235.2 IP, 2.41 ERA, 198/56 K/BB, 1.01 WHIP Dan Haren: 238.1 IP, 3.17 ERA, 192/33 K/BB, 1.02 WHIP Matt Harrison: 185.2 IP, 3.39 ERA, 126/57 K/BB, 1.28 WHIP Yu Darvish (NPB): 232 IP, 1.44 ERA, 276/36 K/BB, 0.83 WHIP Neftali Feliz: 62.1 IP, 2.74 ERA, 32 SV, 54/30 K/BB, 1.16 WHIP That's a buzz saw right there. The Twins could start swinging significantly better and still go 1-5 during that stretch, because those are six of the most imposing starters in the American League and they've got strong lineups to back them. [ATTACH=CONFIG]559[/ATTACH] Things get no easier after the homestand. Next week the Twins hit the road for seven games against the Yankees and Rays, then return home for a three-game set against the Red Sox. Of course, this is nothing new. You've already heard about the brutal first month of the schedule. Unfortunately, the Twins just wasted one of the lone soft spots, allowing the Orioles to walk all over them and looking utterly feeble in the process. The season is young, obviously, but if the quality of play doesn't improve a lot and in a hurry, the Twins face the grim specter of digging a deep early hole.