Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Now that Torii Hunter is finally back from his strained hammy and Shannon Stewart has gotten past a niggling hamstring of his own, I finally got my wish of seeing Stewart, Doug Mientkiewicz, and Corey Koskie in the top three slots of the Twins' lineup. 4-5-6 went Hunter, Jacque Jones and Lew Ford, who has been raking it while filling in first for Hunter in CF and now for Matthew LeCroy at DH.
That top six responded with all 11 Twins hits tonight, including Jones's game-winning three-run homer in the bottom of the 9th. Minnesota turned around a 4-1 deficit through 7 against Toronto to get a 7-4 win. Last Friday the Twins came back against the Royals after being down 5-1 through 7 to win 7-5. Jones and Koskie are showing no ill effects from the lingering injuries they had last year (in addition to seven homers combined each has stolen four bases), Stewart is drawing a walk a game and Mientkiewicz has supplied his usual steady production.
The Twins are 13-7 despite having their entire starting rotation perform somewhere between the levels of scuffling and train wreck. Check here and take a look at the ERAs of the guys who don't have zeroes in the GS column. Not good. I don't know how many more six-run 8th-and-9th-inning rallies the Twins have in them this season, but I do know that Radke, Santana, and Lohse are way too good to continue to struggle the way they have out of the gate. Their hitting will probably cool off some (how many times has Henry Blanco driven in 10 in a two-week span?) but the big three in the Twins' rotation definitely has the ability to pick up that slack.
Once LeCroy and Joe Mauer come back, the Twins will be a pretty deep team. As I pointed out in the Twins preview, their lineup will be stacked with above average performers 1 through 7. Given that it's only a matter of time before the rotation snaps out of it, you have to like the Twins' chances based on their first 20 games.
posted by Tom Renbarger 12:25 AM
