TwinsTakes-RD

I hope to God the Twins don't draft a pitcher because they "need" pitching! Take the best player available especially at #2! Does it matter if they take a college pitcher? Even if they are really good, it's still probably at least two years before they see the majors and by then the Twins will be a different team. Odds are they will still need some pitching but that will also mean they've seen two more years of all the current prospects and some of them could be ready for the Majors by then. Is it harder to adjust a pitcher's mechanics if he's been pitching for 3-4 more years, a college pitcher compared to a high school pitcher? Can the Twins do more with them if they get them when they are younger? Do we want the Twins to make a pitcher into a Twins pitcher or is the only way to get a power pitcher to draft them? I'd rather they pick Buxton or Correa.

I also agree that #7 is Kevin Slowey - http://twinscards.com/images/autographs/thumbnails/1/114/500/11415_1_500x500.jpg

I'd have to agree that #11 is Joe Nathan - Picture from Google

#1 is Jason Kubel - http://i.ebayimg.com/t/JASON-KUBEL-Signed-OML-Baseball-JSA-Diamondbacks-Twins-Autograph-Ball-/22/!B+-Ds3wBGk~$%28KGrHqN,!iEE0E0OYMTBBNBTbJztFg~~_3.JPG

#3 is Garrett Jones - http://cf.mp-cdn.net/ac/8d/7ab4506d983965b71284185d2ee6.jpg

I think #10 is Joe Mays! Do a Google Image search for joe mays autograph

#10 could be Jake Mauer too!

There are some bright spots but you have to look pretty hard to find them. I'm not worried about him. Just waiting on him to go on a tear! Is it a big deal for baseball players to reach the end of a month if they are struggling? Is it like, "hey, it's a new month! I can forget about the last 20 or so games and move on."?

Levi Michael hit the 2nd HR of his minor league career last night, a 2-run shot to right field in the top of the 9th inning that brought the Miracle to within 1 run at 5-4 but the Miracle couldn't pull off the late inning comeback and ended up losing by that same 5-4 score. Hopefully that HR can be the start of a good run for the Twins 2011 1st round pick. It's been a rough beginning to professional baseball for Levi. So far, through 44 games, Levi is hitting .204/.305/.583 (AVG/OBP/OPS) with 33 hits in 162 at bats. He has 2 doubles, 2 triples and now 2 home runs. He's stolen one base in one attempt and he has 24 walks and has struck out 35 times. Obviously those aren't great numbers but there's a learning curve for a young player in his first minor league season. That being said, how long should the Twins leave Levi Michael at the High-A level? It's good for a player to go through some struggles just to see how he deals with it and how he comes out of it but early in a player's career, is an organization playing with fire by letting him struggle for so long? Can this ruin a player like Levi Michael? He's undoubtedly got pretty good makeup being he graduated early so he could join North Carolina early and he played great. There's really no reason to demote him other than he's struggling. There's nobody in Beloit knocking on the door for a promotion either. He's played in 44 of 51 games so they've given Levi some days off and they've moved him around in the lineup. Believe it or not, there are some good things to take from Levi's stats. For example, with runners in scoring position (RISP), he's hitting .294/.357/.828 with 10 hits in 34 at-bats with a double, a triple, a home run, 13 RBIs, 4 walks and 5 strikeouts. Defensively, his fielding percentage is .962 through 44 games with 8 errors in 212 chances. That includes 4 errors in 21 games at 2B (.960) and 4 errors in 24 games at SS (.964). I'm sorry I haven't posted more about Levi but there really hasn't been much to write about. I will post his stats every week from now on. GO MIRACLE!

Something seemed to click for Plouffe in AAA last season and that has to be why they are keeping him around! In the last 7 days, he's hitting .200 (3-15) and has played in 4 of the 7 games on those days. If they want to find out if he can play they need to play him every day! That might be the only good thing about losing like the Twins are right now. They can play these guys right now and see what they have so why are they giving him so many days off? If they don't trust putting him out there, they need to cut their losses and go with someone else. They are afraid to lose him for some reason or he would've been DFA'd a while ago. Komatsu has a brighter future than Plouffe especially as an outfielder.

The Twins even said before the season that Plouffe would focus on the outfield as his position and now they are starting to put him at 3rd base. He played 3B in the minors in 76 games with 68 of those coming in 2007 & 2008! So 8 games at 3rd base in 3 seasons in the minors and the Twins are going to put him there in the majors? I'd rather see them bring up Burroughs and give him a shot and send Mastroianni down.

I don't think he's a 3B or an infielder at all. I only see him in the outfield and if he's an outfielder, when does he get playing time? I don't think you can take Ben Revere out of the lineup for Plouffe in the outfield and the Twins have the most prospects in the outfield. Is the answer trading Denard Span and moving Revere to CF? Shouldn't they be looking to trade Span anyways with the need for starting pitching?

So, does this mean you believe Plouffe is a utility player? How much longer can you go with a guy who isn't hitting and doesn't play very good defense and now doesn't really have a position! I've kind of thought that there's no reason that Plouffe couldn't become a Cuddyer-like player with his defense and be a decent hitter. He probably will never have the intangibles Cuddy has (leadership, community service, MAGIC) but he could probably learn RF and get better at it. But is Plouffe getting more playing time than he deserves? Should someone else be playing instead of him? When should the Twins cut their losses with Plouffe?

Lew is 35 years old and his birthday is August 12th!

I always enjoyed watching Lew Ford. He wasn't the greatest player but he gave everything he had and came up with some great moments in Twins history! LEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!

Thanks for commenting! You're the first one to comment on one of my blog posts! I'm glad somebody is reading them! Haha! Thanks again!

I somewhat agree. When you see Valencia in interviews or behind the scenes, he seems like a cocky player and comes off as he only cares about what he's doing and not the team. We've all heard he hasn't been great in the locker room either. The problem of course is who do we have to put over at third? There's not really anyone "ready" in the minors so do you put Plouffe over there or Carroll for the time being? I'm not sure I want Plouffe in the infield at all. I think Plouffe will be alright but he's playing with fire and needs to go on a tear or he might be DFA'd! I don't see why Plouffe can't turn into another Cuddyer on the field. He might not be the locker room leader that Cuddy is but on the field he should be very close to Cuddy if he improves his arm accuracy.

[/url] via Danny Valencia was the victim of change due to losing games! or was he? It's hard to call Danny a victim when he has a .190 batting average (AVG), a .204 on-base percentage (OBP) and a slugging percentage of .290 (SLG), even if Drew Butera thinks those numbers are pretty good.* Those are numbers that are screaming THIS ISN'T WORKING so the Minnesota Twins optioned Danny Valencia down to Triple-A Rochester on Thursday, May 10th. He needs to go down there, get to work and get some confidence back into his game. *Haha, sorry Drew! My first thought was to go with Junior Ortiz for that, then Tim Laudner but I decided to go with a current Twin so everyone would know who it was. How 'bout Brendan Harris or Matt Tolbert or maybe Alexi Casilla so I can match up the ValenSeeYa with the CaSeeYa? ValenSeeYa is supposed to be a good thing like when Danny hits a home run or gets a clutch hit not when he's sent down to the minors! Danny has gone through some struggles on his way to the Major Leagues but I doubt he's gone through anything like this where he's struggled for so long. He had a tremendous 2010 season for the Minnesota Twins to the point where it's hard to find an area he didn't do well in, at least with the bat. He only had half a season in the majors but he seemed to adapt to the major leagues quickly. Did his success make him relax in the off-seasons or was it teams learning how to pitch him? In 2011, Danny Valencia was hitting basically the same way he was in 2010 but getting different results and less hits. He started to struggle against right-handed pitchers. That will tend to happen after teams get some film on young players. That's probably not close to the whole reason Danny struggled in 2011. I'm far from an expert in analyzing swings. I'll leave that to the scouting types.* *I do find it fascinating how a batter's swing can be divided into so many parts and then adjusted or fixed to speed up or slow down a swing for various situations. Think of what that takes to do and do it in a timely manner to fix your swing from day to day or even week to week. The discipline to first admit there's something wrong, even if you can see it on video, then know what to do (or try) to fix it and, most of all, to change a part of your swing and get to the point where it becomes natural to you again. I'm not sure most fans realize how much this happens. Another thing that's amazing is that these players obviously had success before they changed a part of their swing so it was working and it just shows that baseball is a game with adjustments going on all the time and that's why I love the game! So Danny's hitting struggles go back to 2011 and have not really ended and have actually gotten worse. At least in 2011 he was still getting some walks where as in 2012, he has 2 walks and 23 strikeouts in 27 games and 100 at-bats. That tells me that he's trying to swing his way out of his slump which usually means swinging at more bad pitches. The opposing teams and pitchers know he's struggling so they'll try to take advantage of that by not giving him much to hit and seeing if he'll bite on the breaking balls and off-speed stuff and throwing more outside pitches as well. The trouble with being in a slump is most players try to swing their way out of it, swinging at more pitches and at more pitches out of the strike zone but contacting on less of those pitches. Look at Danny's plate discipline stats and it's easy to see what I'm talking about. His swing percentage on pitches out of the strike zone has gone from 24.9 % in 2010 to 30.9% in 2011 and a whopping 40.1% so far this season while his swing percentage on pitches in the strike zone has gone down (60.3 to 57.8 to 50.5.) Not surprisingly, his contact percentage has gone down as well (82.9 to 79.8 to 74.6.) He's getting down in the count early which is getting him into pitcher's counts and he's swinging at the junk they are throwing out of the zone which, of course, is harder to hit. Danny is 0-for-May and he's struggling big time. The Minnesota Twins could've tried sitting him down for a couple games but they obviously didn't want to go in that direction. Hopefully Danny is able to correct this in the minors because we've seen that he's capable of being a pretty good hitter. Defensively, Danny has kind of been on the questionable side so when he performed so well in his initial call-up, it took most people by surprise. His defense went from above average to really bad. Was it playing more games and the small sample size fooling us? Ron Gardenhire started to show frustration with Danny's approach at the hot corner and hinted that the team's future at 3rd base might be in question. Danny worked on his defense in the off-season and has looked a lot better but he still has his deficiencies. The bad thing about sending Danny Valencia to the minors is the Minnesota Twins don't really have another 3rd baseman on the roster. They have some guys they can put over there, like Jamey Carroll, Trevor Plouffe, or Alexi Casilla, but they have never really played 3rd base full-time. This should allow the Twins to get Trevor Plouffe more playing time to see if he is worth keeping or if they eventually have to make a move with him as well.* This points to the problems of the Twins depth in the minors at 3rd base and infielders as a whole. *Plouffe is hitting a whopping .145/.280/.585 although in the last two games he is 2-9 with 2 home runs, 3 RBIs and 4 strikeouts so we may have witnessed a slump...BUSTED! Trevor is out of options so he would have to clear waivers to be sent to triple-A. I would prefer they keep Plouffe in the outfield as he's shown that he might not have the skills to play infield in the Majors. He seems to be on a Michael Cuddyer path where the Twins are trying to find a place for him and it might end up being right field because his glove isn't good enough in the infield. He could probably fill in at 1st base here and there but that's about it. The bottom line is if players aren't performing and they still have options left to be sent down to the minors, at some point they need to play better or someone else needs to be given a chance in The Show! That's what has to happen when you have a losing team. Other Minnesota Twinsactions 5/7 - 1B Justin Morneau placed on 15-Day disabled list (retroactive to May 1, 2012) with sore right wrist 5/7 - SS Brian Dozier recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/7 - RHP Liam Hendricks optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/7 - LHP Scott Diamond recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/9 - signed free agent DH Shawn Roof 5/10 - LHP Matt Maloney designated for assignment 5/10 - RHP P.J. Walters recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/10 - 3B Danny Valencia optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/10 - LF Darin Mastroianni recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings SS Brian Dozier is the big name on this list. He’s moved through the organization quickly and made a bid to make the team out of spring training. Don’t expect him to be the savior or anything like that but it’s always exciting to see how a prospect does in his debut. It’s fun to see the firsts of a player’s major league career (hit, rbi, home run, etc...). He should be pretty good defensively and alright with the bat. LHP Scott Diamond was up with the Twins at the end of last season for 7 starts (a spot start in July and a regular rotation spot in late August) going 1-5 (W-L). He got his 1st Major League win in a 7-6 win in Chicago against the White Sox. He ended up with a 5.08 ERA & 1.744 WHIP (Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched) with 17 walks and 19 strikeouts in 39 innings. Not great but he got a taste of what it’s like in The Show and had a couple good starts. He’s been great so far this season no matter where he’s pitched. In triple-A Rochester, he was 4-1 with a 2.60 ERA, 1.212 WHIP with only 7 walks and 26 strikeouts in 34.2 innings. He’s been spectacular with the Twins. In his 2 starts, he’s 2-0, has yet to give up a run (0.00 ERA), has a WHIP of 0.714 and has only 1 walk and 10 strikeouts in 14 innings. Can he keep this going? [*]RHP P.J. Walters was signed as a free agent in December. He was part of the Colby Rasmus trade from St. Louis to Toronto for Edwin Jackson. He’s been up and down between AAA and the majors since 2009 getting some starts and some time in the bullpen. [*]LF Darin Mastroianni was claimed off waivers from Toronto in the off-season. He’s got a lot of speed, good plate discipline, a decent bat although very little power and he’s good defensively in the outfield. He can play 2B as well although I doubt he’d be put there much for Twins but nice to have that option if you need it. Alright, those are my TwinsTakes. What are your TwinsTakes? Are the Minnesota Twins doing the right things with their roster? When will we see Danny Valencia back up with the Twins? Tell us what you think in the comments! Follow us on Twitter and on Facebook and subscribe to our feed! GO TWINS!!!

[/url] via Danny Valencia was the victim of change due to losing games! or was he? It's hard to call Danny a victim when he has a .190 batting average (AVG), a .204 on-base percentage (OBP) and a slugging percentage of .290 (SLG), even if Drew Butera thinks those numbers are pretty good.* Those are numbers that are screaming THIS ISN'T WORKING so the Minnesota Twins optioned Danny Valencia down to Triple-A Rochester on Thursday, May 10th. He needs to go down there, get to work and get some confidence back into his game. *Haha, sorry Drew! My first thought was to go with Junior Ortiz for that, then Tim Laudner but I decided to go with a current Twin so everyone would know who it was. How 'bout Brendan Harris or Matt Tolbert or maybe Alexi Casilla so I can match up the ValenSeeYa with the CaSeeYa? ValenSeeYa is supposed to be a good thing like when Danny hits a home run or gets a clutch hit not when he's sent down to the minors! Danny has gone through some struggles on his way to the Major Leagues but I doubt he's gone through anything like this where he's struggled for so long. He had a tremendous 2010 season for the Minnesota Twins to the point where it's hard to find an area he didn't do well in, at least with the bat. He only had half a season in the majors but he seemed to adapt to the major leagues quickly. Did his success make him relax in the off-seasons or was it teams learning how to pitch him? In 2011, Danny Valencia was hitting basically the same way he was in 2010 but getting different results and less hits. He started to struggle against right-handed pitchers. That will tend to happen after teams get some film on young players. That's probably not close to the whole reason Danny struggled in 2011. I'm far from an expert in analyzing swings. I'll leave that to the scouting types.* *I do find it fascinating how a batter's swing can be divided into so many parts and then adjusted or fixed to speed up or slow down a swing for various situations. Think of what that takes to do and do it in a timely manner to fix your swing from day to day or even week to week. The discipline to first admit there's something wrong, even if you can see it on video, then know what to do (or try) to fix it and, most of all, to change a part of your swing and get to the point where it becomes natural to you again. I'm not sure most fans realize how much this happens. Another thing that's amazing is that these players obviously had success before they changed a part of their swing so it was working and it just shows that baseball is a game with adjustments going on all the time and that's why I love the game! So Danny's hitting struggles go back to 2011 and have not really ended and have actually gotten worse. At least in 2011 he was still getting some walks where as in 2012, he has 2 walks and 23 strikeouts in 27 games and 100 at-bats. That tells me that he's trying to swing his way out of his slump which usually means swinging at more bad pitches. The opposing teams and pitchers know he's struggling so they'll try to take advantage of that by not giving him much to hit and seeing if he'll bite on the breaking balls and off-speed stuff and throwing more outside pitches as well. The trouble with being in a slump is most players try to swing their way out of it, swinging at more pitches and at more pitches out of the strike zone but contacting on less of those pitches. Look at Danny's plate discipline stats and it's easy to see what I'm talking about. His swing percentage on pitches out of the strike zone has gone from 24.9 % in 2010 to 30.9% in 2011 and a whopping 40.1% so far this season while his swing percentage on pitches in the strike zone has gone down (60.3 to 57.8 to 50.5.) Not surprisingly, his contact percentage has gone down as well (82.9 to 79.8 to 74.6.) He's getting down in the count early which is getting him into pitcher's counts and he's swinging at the junk they are throwing out of the zone which, of course, is harder to hit. Danny is 0-for-May and he's struggling big time. The Minnesota Twins could've tried sitting him down for a couple games but they obviously didn't want to go in that direction. Hopefully Danny is able to correct this in the minors because we've seen that he's capable of being a pretty good hitter. Defensively, Danny has kind of been on the questionable side so when he performed so well in his initial call-up, it took most people by surprise. His defense went from above average to really bad. Was it playing more games and the small sample size fooling us? Ron Gardenhire started to show frustration with Danny's approach at the hot corner and hinted that the team's future at 3rd base might be in question. Danny worked on his defense in the off-season and has looked a lot better but he still has his deficiencies. The bad thing about sending Danny Valencia to the minors is the Minnesota Twins don't really have another 3rd baseman on the roster. They have some guys they can put over there, like Jamey Carroll, Trevor Plouffe, or Alexi Casilla, but they have never really played 3rd base full-time. This should allow the Twins to get Trevor Plouffe more playing time to see if he is worth keeping or if they eventually have to make a move with him as well.* This points to the problems of the Twins depth in the minors at 3rd base and infielders as a whole. *Plouffe is hitting a whopping .145/.280/.585 although in the last two games he is 2-9 with 2 home runs, 3 RBIs and 4 strikeouts so we may have witnessed a slump...BUSTED! Trevor is out of options so he would have to clear waivers to be sent to triple-A. I would prefer they keep Plouffe in the outfield as he's shown that he might not have the skills to play infield in the Majors. He seems to be on a Michael Cuddyer path where the Twins are trying to find a place for him and it might end up being right field because his glove isn't good enough in the infield. He could probably fill in at 1st base here and there but that's about it. The bottom line is if players aren't performing and they still have options left to be sent down to the minors, at some point they need to play better or someone else needs to be given a chance in The Show! That's what has to happen when you have a losing team. Other Minnesota Twinsactions 5/7 - 1B Justin Morneau placed on 15-Day disabled list (retroactive to May 1, 2012) with sore right wrist 5/7 - SS Brian Dozier recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/7 - RHP Liam Hendricks optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/7 - LHP Scott Diamond recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/9 - signed free agent DH Shawn Roof 5/10 - LHP Matt Maloney designated for assignment 5/10 - RHP P.J. Walters recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/10 - 3B Danny Valencia optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/10 - LF Darin Mastroianni recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings SS Brian Dozier is the big name on this list. He’s moved through the organization quickly and made a bid to make the team out of spring training. Don’t expect him to be the savior or anything like that but it’s always exciting to see how a prospect does in his debut. It’s fun to see the firsts of a player’s major league career (hit, rbi, home run, etc...). He should be pretty good defensively and alright with the bat. LHP Scott Diamond was up with the Twins at the end of last season for 7 starts (a spot start in July and a regular rotation spot in late August) going 1-5 (W-L). He got his 1st Major League win in a 7-6 win in Chicago against the White Sox. He ended up with a 5.08 ERA & 1.744 WHIP (Walks + Hits per Innings Pitched) with 17 walks and 19 strikeouts in 39 innings. Not great but he got a taste of what it’s like in The Show and had a couple good starts. He’s been great so far this season no matter where he’s pitched. In triple-A Rochester, he was 4-1 with a 2.60 ERA, 1.212 WHIP with only 7 walks and 26 strikeouts in 34.2 innings. He’s been spectacular with the Twins. In his 2 starts, he’s 2-0, has yet to give up a run (0.00 ERA), has a WHIP of 0.714 and has only 1 walk and 10 strikeouts in 14 innings. Can he keep this going? [*]RHP P.J. Walters was signed as a free agent in December. He was part of the Colby Rasmus trade from St. Louis to Toronto for Edwin Jackson. He’s been up and down between AAA and the majors since 2009 getting some starts and some time in the bullpen. [*]LF Darin Mastroianni was claimed off waivers from Toronto in the off-season. He’s got a lot of speed, good plate discipline, a decent bat although very little power and he’s good defensively in the outfield. He can play 2B as well although I doubt he’d be put there much for Twins but nice to have that option if you need it. Alright, those are my TwinsTakes. What are your TwinsTakes? Are the Minnesota Twins doing the right things with their roster? When will we see Danny Valencia back up with the Twins? Tell us what you think in the comments! Follow us on Twitter and on Facebook and subscribe to our feed! GO TWINS!!!

Levi Michael hit his first professional 2-bagger last night! In his 26th game and his 97th at-bat (111th plate appearance) and his most recent plate appearance since it was in the bottom of the 7th at Hammond Stadium, Levi hit a double to left field scoring Daniel Santana! Levi scored in the next at-bat when Oswaldo Arcia doubled to center field and that would be the last run scored in a 13 to 3 Miracle win over the Lakeland Flying Tigers (A Detroit Tigers affiliate). That victory improves the Miracle's record to 11-19, last place in the South Division of the Florida State League. Levi is now 22 for 97 so he's hitting .227/.321/.631 (AVG/OBP/OPS) with 1 double, 2 triples, 1 home run and 6 RBIs with 14 walks and 21 strikeouts and he's also stolen a base in his only stolen base attempt. On the defensive side, he has 5 errors on the season. His stats page says his OBP is .321 and he's slugging .309 and his OPS is .631 but one of them is wrong since .321 + .309 is .630! Weird? No big deal, just thought that was strange.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5444/7089272671_ef68b0c903.jpg http://www.twinstakes.com/wp-content/plugins/compfight/images/cc.png Photo Credit: acase1968 via Compfight Nice Picture, huh? Kinda Gross! Did the offense give the pitching a break for a week? No Hits in L.A. Well, there's nothing like having a pitcher throw a no-hitter against you to get the focus off the pitching, huh? On Wednesday, the 2nd of May, Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher, Jered Weaver, pitched a no-hitter against our Minnesota Twins. That also made it two games in a row the Twins were kept off the scoreboard having been shut out the previous game by Jerome Williams. They ended up scoring only 3 runs in the 3-game series after scoring 13 runs in 2 games at home against the Kansas City Royals. A no-hitter is a tremendous accomplishment for any pitcher and the team around him! There are other players on the field though. Pretty much every no-hitter has a few great defensive plays that keep it a no-hitter, even if those plays aren't really remembered much, if at all. The pitcher is remembered for the no-hitter so it seems like the pitcher was solely responsible for the whole game.* Every ball hit the web of the glove that was put in play unless, of course, there was an error. The pitcher knows this and I would imagine they all do something to make it known how thankful he is for all the plays his defense made for him. *Maybe it should also be known as an all-webber? or a Web-fest? I'll come up with something! Ooh, how 'bout All-Leather Performance? No? Most fans seemed to react as if this was rock bottom for the Minnesota Twins. They have the worst record in baseball, were shut out by a 5th starter and now they've been no-hit by a pitcher who is the ace of the Angels staff. I obviously don't want it to get worse for the Twins but I'm not sure that's rock bottom! How different would people have reacted if they got one hit? Would that have changed their reaction? In the end, it is just one game and they have to be ready to play the next game. The Twins had a day off so they had time to think about, hopefully work on and go over the struggles they are going through. They need to forget about not getting a hit and just go play baseball in Seattle. Worst team in baseball? Have the Twins been as bad as their record shows? Maybe, but they have played some decent baseball at times. The offense has been performing alright but the pitching has been horrible. They aren't getting the big hit when they need it, especially with the bases loaded, where they are hitting .200 (5-25) with 1 double, 14 runs batted in (RBIs), 1 walk and 6 strikeouts. Usually when they have gotten a big hit, the pitching has given up the lead and the game more often than not. They've been in games with chances to win. 11 of their 25 games have been one run games and they are 5-6 in those games. Only 2 of their games have been 2-run games and they lost both of those in Baltimore, 4-2 & 3-1. In 1-run games, they have been outscored 60 to 59. In the other 14 games, they've been outscored 76 to 31! It's no wonder pitching was my take in week 2 and week 3. OUCH! Have the Twins been as bad as they were last season when they were committing errors on defense and just playing bad baseball? I don’t think so or at least I think it’s too early to say with just 25 games played. A lot can happen in 137 games! It will be interesting either way, good or bad. 25 Scoreless Innings? Who Cares? The Twins broke their scoreless innings streak last night when they scored in the 7th inning last night in Seattle. A lot of people made a big deal of that since they were shut out two straight games. Sometimes fans make too big a deal of those things. After shutting out the Twins for two straight games, the Angels have been shut out twice at home by the Toronto Blue Jays and have been shut out a whopping 6 times in 27 games and they have Albert Pujols on their team!* *How often does a team with Albert Pujols get shut out 6 times in a season? It can’t be many, right? WRONG! Since 2001, Pujols 1st season, the St. Louis Cardinals were shut out 89 times! Only 3 of those seasons did they get shutout less than 6 times. Sometimes stats don’t mean anything and they almost always don’t mean anything to the players playing the game. Do you think any of the players knew their scoreless innings streak was at 25 innings in the 7th inning last night? At most, they knew they hadn’t scored in two straight games but don’t care about the one inning they didn’t score in the 1st game of the Angels series and the 6 innings to start the 1st game in Seattle. Jared Burton How many of you know that Jared Burton has gone 8.1 innings without giving up a hit? That’s right! He gave up 2 runs (both home runs) in his Twins debut on April 7th and 1 run in his appearance on April 12th but since then he hasn’t even given up a hit. In those 8.1 innings, he’s struck out 8 and walked 2 with 11 groundball outs and 5 fly ball outs. He’s been pitching great and is or should be the right-handed setup guy. I hope I didn’t just jinx him but if I did, I’ll take credit for it! Hey, any publicity is good publicity, people! Tell EVERYBODY! Haha! Is the Fire Gardy Bandwagon Fueling Up? With the Twins record at 7-18, a lot of fans have taken to the Fire Gardy bandwagon! A lot of fans have been on that bandwagon for a long time and have never been fans of Ron Gardenhire. I don’t really know what Gardy is supposed to do with this team. He lost one of his best pitchers in Scott Baker before the season began and Francisco Liriano, his supposed best pitcher, apparently forgot how to pitch. The rest of the staff is either young or old! How much should we really expect from Liam Hendriks, Carl Pavano and Jason Marquis? So the two guys he was depending on are nowhere to be seen or shouldn’t be seen. It is almost impossible to win without good pitching. You can have the greatest offense in the world but if you can’t keep the other team from scoring, you’re probably not going to be winning a lot of games. The Texas Rangers finally figured that out and look where they are now. Gardy won't be in Seattle as he went back to Minnesota for his daughter's graduation. Or is it Garduation? Maybe the Twins needed more than three extra days in Spring Training? Gardy? Twinsactions of the Week - Ups & Downs 4/28 - OF Ben Revere optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings 4/28 - LF Josh Willingham activated from Paternity leave 5/1 - C Drew Butera recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/1 - 3B Sean Burroughs designated for assignment 5/4 - RF Erik Komatsu claimed off waivers from St. Louis Cardinals 5/4 - RF Clete Thomas designated for assignment 5/4 - 3B Sean Burroughs outrighted to AAA Rochester Red Wings Sean Burroughs accepted his assignment to Rochester so we’ll see how he does there. That could be good for the Twins. Erik Komatsu might be a better option for the Twins than Clete Thomas. Komatsu looks to have a better feel for the strike zone with a .389 career minor league on base percentage (OBP) Clete Thomas had a minor league OBP of .348 and as you saw, he struck out a tad - in his last 7 games, he was 1-18 with 14 strikeouts and no walks Those are my TwinsTakes! What are your TwinsTakes? Will the Twins get better as the season goes on? Will it be a repeat of last season? We want to know what you think! Tell us in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook! Twins Take on Seattle tonight at 8pm CST - RHP Jason Marquis vs RHP Felix Hernandez! Maybe the Twins can start a winning streak! As always....GO TWINS!

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5444/7089272671_ef68b0c903.jpg http://www.twinstakes.com/wp-content/plugins/compfight/images/cc.png Photo Credit: acase1968 via Compfight Nice Picture, huh? Kinda Gross! Did the offense give the pitching a break for a week? No Hits in L.A. Well, there's nothing like having a pitcher throw a no-hitter against you to get the focus off the pitching, huh? On Wednesday, the 2nd of May, Los Angeles Angels starting pitcher, Jered Weaver, pitched a no-hitter against our Minnesota Twins. That also made it two games in a row the Twins were kept off the scoreboard having been shut out the previous game by Jerome Williams. They ended up scoring only 3 runs in the 3-game series after scoring 13 runs in 2 games at home against the Kansas City Royals. A no-hitter is a tremendous accomplishment for any pitcher and the team around him! There are other players on the field though. Pretty much every no-hitter has a few great defensive plays that keep it a no-hitter, even if those plays aren't really remembered much, if at all. The pitcher is remembered for the no-hitter so it seems like the pitcher was solely responsible for the whole game.* Every ball hit the web of the glove that was put in play unless, of course, there was an error. The pitcher knows this and I would imagine they all do something to make it known how thankful he is for all the plays his defense made for him. *Maybe it should also be known as an all-webber? or a Web-fest? I'll come up with something! Ooh, how 'bout All-Leather Performance? No? Most fans seemed to react as if this was rock bottom for the Minnesota Twins. They have the worst record in baseball, were shut out by a 5th starter and now they've been no-hit by a pitcher who is the ace of the Angels staff. I obviously don't want it to get worse for the Twins but I'm not sure that's rock bottom! How different would people have reacted if they got one hit? Would that have changed their reaction? In the end, it is just one game and they have to be ready to play the next game. The Twins had a day off so they had time to think about, hopefully work on and go over the struggles they are going through. They need to forget about not getting a hit and just go play baseball in Seattle. Worst team in baseball? Have the Twins been as bad as their record shows? Maybe, but they have played some decent baseball at times. The offense has been performing alright but the pitching has been horrible. They aren't getting the big hit when they need it, especially with the bases loaded, where they are hitting .200 (5-25) with 1 double, 14 runs batted in (RBIs), 1 walk and 6 strikeouts. Usually when they have gotten a big hit, the pitching has given up the lead and the game more often than not. They've been in games with chances to win. 11 of their 25 games have been one run games and they are 5-6 in those games. Only 2 of their games have been 2-run games and they lost both of those in Baltimore, 4-2 & 3-1. In 1-run games, they have been outscored 60 to 59. In the other 14 games, they've been outscored 76 to 31! It's no wonder pitching was my take in week 2 and week 3. OUCH! Have the Twins been as bad as they were last season when they were committing errors on defense and just playing bad baseball? I don’t think so or at least I think it’s too early to say with just 25 games played. A lot can happen in 137 games! It will be interesting either way, good or bad. 25 Scoreless Innings? Who Cares? The Twins broke their scoreless innings streak last night when they scored in the 7th inning last night in Seattle. A lot of people made a big deal of that since they were shut out two straight games. Sometimes fans make too big a deal of those things. After shutting out the Twins for two straight games, the Angels have been shut out twice at home by the Toronto Blue Jays and have been shut out a whopping 6 times in 27 games and they have Albert Pujols on their team!* *How often does a team with Albert Pujols get shut out 6 times in a season? It can’t be many, right? WRONG! Since 2001, Pujols 1st season, the St. Louis Cardinals were shut out 89 times! Only 3 of those seasons did they get shutout less than 6 times. Sometimes stats don’t mean anything and they almost always don’t mean anything to the players playing the game. Do you think any of the players knew their scoreless innings streak was at 25 innings in the 7th inning last night? At most, they knew they hadn’t scored in two straight games but don’t care about the one inning they didn’t score in the 1st game of the Angels series and the 6 innings to start the 1st game in Seattle. Jared Burton How many of you know that Jared Burton has gone 8.1 innings without giving up a hit? That’s right! He gave up 2 runs (both home runs) in his Twins debut on April 7th and 1 run in his appearance on April 12th but since then he hasn’t even given up a hit. In those 8.1 innings, he’s struck out 8 and walked 2 with 11 groundball outs and 5 fly ball outs. He’s been pitching great and is or should be the right-handed setup guy. I hope I didn’t just jinx him but if I did, I’ll take credit for it! Hey, any publicity is good publicity, people! Tell EVERYBODY! Haha! Is the Fire Gardy Bandwagon Fueling Up? With the Twins record at 7-18, a lot of fans have taken to the Fire Gardy bandwagon! A lot of fans have been on that bandwagon for a long time and have never been fans of Ron Gardenhire. I don’t really know what Gardy is supposed to do with this team. He lost one of his best pitchers in Scott Baker before the season began and Francisco Liriano, his supposed best pitcher, apparently forgot how to pitch. The rest of the staff is either young or old! How much should we really expect from Liam Hendriks, Carl Pavano and Jason Marquis? So the two guys he was depending on are nowhere to be seen or shouldn’t be seen. It is almost impossible to win without good pitching. You can have the greatest offense in the world but if you can’t keep the other team from scoring, you’re probably not going to be winning a lot of games. The Texas Rangers finally figured that out and look where they are now. Gardy won't be in Seattle as he went back to Minnesota for his daughter's graduation. Or is it Garduation? Maybe the Twins needed more than three extra days in Spring Training? Gardy? Twinsactions of the Week - Ups & Downs 4/28 - OF Ben Revere optioned to AAA Rochester Red Wings 4/28 - LF Josh Willingham activated from Paternity leave 5/1 - C Drew Butera recalled from AAA Rochester Red Wings 5/1 - 3B Sean Burroughs designated for assignment 5/4 - RF Erik Komatsu claimed off waivers from St. Louis Cardinals 5/4 - RF Clete Thomas designated for assignment 5/4 - 3B Sean Burroughs outrighted to AAA Rochester Red Wings Sean Burroughs accepted his assignment to Rochester so we’ll see how he does there. That could be good for the Twins. Erik Komatsu might be a better option for the Twins than Clete Thomas. Komatsu looks to have a better feel for the strike zone with a .389 career minor league on base percentage (OBP) Clete Thomas had a minor league OBP of .348 and as you saw, he struck out a tad - in his last 7 games, he was 1-18 with 14 strikeouts and no walks Those are my TwinsTakes! What are your TwinsTakes? Will the Twins get better as the season goes on? Will it be a repeat of last season? We want to know what you think! Tell us in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook! Twins Take on Seattle tonight at 8pm CST - RHP Jason Marquis vs RHP Felix Hernandez! Maybe the Twins can start a winning streak! As always....GO TWINS!

Photo Credit:Michael Donovan viaCompfight Giving up a ton of hits, home runs and an ERA of 5.77 = LOSING! It also equals a Redundant take! I know last week the take of the week was on the starting pitching and it would be great to have a different take this week but the pitching is the obvious reason why the Twins are losing 3 out of every 4 games in the first 20 games of the season. If your team is giving up the 3rd most hits, the most earned runs and the 2nd most home runs, your not going to be celebrating too much! For the longest time the Twins were winning with Pitching and Defense. That's been the "Twins Way" and would always give the Twins a chance to win games and the division. Carl Pavano leads the staff with a 4.91 Earned Run Average (ERA), not counting bullpen pitchers where Alex Burnett has an 0.77 ERA! I'll say that again. Alex Burnett has a 0.77 ERA to lead the bullpen! He's been pitching great so far this season! Obviously with 142 games to play, there's plenty of time for the pitching to get better. Every pitcher in the starting rotation should pitch better as the season goes along. Francisco Liriano won't have an ERA over 11 all season long and Liam Hendriks looks like he has the "stuff" to post a decent ERA by the end of the season, down from the 6.89 ERA he has now. Jason Marquis and Nick Blackburn, with ERAs above 7, will get closer to their career ERAs of 4.5 or so. The starters will start getting more quality starts and we'll see what that leads to, hopefully more wins! It's sad because the offense has stepped up and given the team a chance to win but it's hard to ask them to score 6-7 runs a game in order to win. Yes, the offense could have, or maybe should have, come through in some situations, mainly the bases-loaded situations, but they've done enough to win some games where the pitching wasn't getting the job done. We're in for a rough season if the pitching doesn't get better quickly. Sadly, with a 6-16 record, the Twins are only 6 games back of division leader Cleveland. That being said and with where the Twins are, nobody should be looking or worrying about the division right now. Get your team playing good baseball, pitching good baseball and start winning some games. The theory goes that you get back to .500 before you start thinking about catching the division leader. The first 20 games were filled with opponents that were either in the playoffs or in contention for the playoffs last season except for the season opening series in Baltimore (and one against Kansas City.) Did the Twins need some time to get it going this season? The Twins have already dealt with some injuries and other incidents that have caused pitchers to miss starts or delay their season so let's see where they are after the next 20 games where they get some division opponents and maybe some "average" opponents. There are no easy teams but there are definitely some teams that should be easier to pitch and hit against, right? That's my take! What's your take on the Twins last week? Will the losing continue? Will they right the ship and start winning some games? Tell us what you think in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook! As always....GO TWINS!

Photo Credit:Michael Donovan viaCompfight Giving up a ton of hits, home runs and an ERA of 5.77 = LOSING! It also equals a Redundant take! I know last week the take of the week was on the starting pitching and it would be great to have a different take this week but the pitching is the obvious reason why the Twins are losing 3 out of every 4 games in the first 20 games of the season. If your team is giving up the 3rd most hits, the most earned runs and the 2nd most home runs, your not going to be celebrating too much! For the longest time the Twins were winning with Pitching and Defense. That's been the "Twins Way" and would always give the Twins a chance to win games and the division. Carl Pavano leads the staff with a 4.91 Earned Run Average (ERA), not counting bullpen pitchers where Alex Burnett has an 0.77 ERA! I'll say that again. Alex Burnett has a 0.77 ERA to lead the bullpen! He's been pitching great so far this season! Obviously with 142 games to play, there's plenty of time for the pitching to get better. Every pitcher in the starting rotation should pitch better as the season goes along. Francisco Liriano won't have an ERA over 11 all season long and Liam Hendriks looks like he has the "stuff" to post a decent ERA by the end of the season, down from the 6.89 ERA he has now. Jason Marquis and Nick Blackburn, with ERAs above 7, will get closer to their career ERAs of 4.5 or so. The starters will start getting more quality starts and we'll see what that leads to, hopefully more wins! It's sad because the offense has stepped up and given the team a chance to win but it's hard to ask them to score 6-7 runs a game in order to win. Yes, the offense could have, or maybe should have, come through in some situations, mainly the bases-loaded situations, but they've done enough to win some games where the pitching wasn't getting the job done. We're in for a rough season if the pitching doesn't get better quickly. Sadly, with a 6-16 record, the Twins are only 6 games back of division leader Cleveland. That being said and with where the Twins are, nobody should be looking or worrying about the division right now. Get your team playing good baseball, pitching good baseball and start winning some games. The theory goes that you get back to .500 before you start thinking about catching the division leader. The first 20 games were filled with opponents that were either in the playoffs or in contention for the playoffs last season except for the season opening series in Baltimore (and one against Kansas City.) Did the Twins need some time to get it going this season? The Twins have already dealt with some injuries and other incidents that have caused pitchers to miss starts or delay their season so let's see where they are after the next 20 games where they get some division opponents and maybe some "average" opponents. There are no easy teams but there are definitely some teams that should be easier to pitch and hit against, right? That's my take! What's your take on the Twins last week? Will the losing continue? Will they right the ship and start winning some games? Tell us what you think in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook! As always....GO TWINS!

Ichiro would be a good one. I think an obvious choice would be Pujols if we're talking about active players and Mariano Rivera for a pitcher. For retired players, I would love to see a Rickey Henderson statue.