Thursday, May 18, 2006

Panic in Detroit/Who's next?

So the Twins not only brought in the Boof (as predicted here), but also sent Kyle Lohse off to Elba (a/k/a Rochester) for a little time to get his attitude right. And only four days after it looked like the Twins had righted the ship, they are on a four game losing streak and the starting rotation is in tatters. So what do we make of this?

  • This season will be a slog, at best. Carlos Silva is the key to the season. When he is right, he can eat up innings and keep the Twins in games. There's reason to believe that the Twins ultimately will end up with pretty good offensive numbers. Michael Cuddyer has greatly improved at the plate, Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer continue to improve and even elderly imports Tony Batista and Rondell White are contributing some better at-bats lately. But it won't matter unless the Twins can stay in games. If it's close at the end, Joe Nathan will keep them winning. But right now the pitching is not good enough.
  • Lohse is more trouble than he's worth, at least in Minnesota. There are some smart baseball people who still think that, with a change of scenery, he could be an effective major league pitcher. But it's clear now that he has lost Ron Gardenhire's trust and the backing of his teammates. I'd suggest bringing him back up, putting him in the bullpen for a few games in a 6th-7th inning type setting, and let him go back to blowing away hitters with his good fastball. Then ship him off to some pitching-desperate NL team around the All-Star break and get something useful in exchange. I'm guessing the Rockies will be needing extra arms around then.
  • I'm looking pretty good on the bet I made with my son before the season - that the Milwaukee Brewers would finish with a better overall record than the Twins. This should put an end to his amusing/annoying taunts of, "Dad, you know your Brewers stink!"

p.s. The title of this post references two recording artists. One is easy, the other not so. If you know the answer, put it in the comments section and I'll give you at minimum a hearty handshake some time....

1 comment:

Homer said...

One artist is

THE WHO

the other is

DAVID BOWIE