FanNation - The Republic of Sport

The halfway point in the season and I'm still 'a blogging. Thanks mostly goes to a good Twins team that has kept this season interesting. Let's see, at this point, weren't the Twins supposed to have 35 wins instead of 45? In fact, the Twins .549 win percentage puts them fifth best in the AL, only behind the Red and White Sox, the Rays and the Angles. Too bad for ESPN, they may have to actually pay some attention to them, if they stay in the race. Anyway, in the headlines, Michael Cuddyer (.252/.324/.376) has been put on the 15 day DL, with Denard Span (8 hits in 31 MLB AB's, no extra base hits) being called up from AAA. I guess give him a chance and see if he will surprise. My biggest question though, is when will Francisco Liriano be called up? He's had enough starts in AAA, most of them pretty good, though his last two have been awful. At some point, they will have to give him another chance.

The week that was. Another sweep against a lowly NL team, in this case the Padres. I guess you can balance that out with a series victory against the pretty good Brewers. The RS/RA line was 29/18, with the defense allowing only 1 unearned run on 3 errors. The starting pitching ran the gamete from great, to serviceable, to awful. The starter's game scores for the week were Kevin Slowey 71 (not great great, but pretty damn good), Glen Perkins 43, Scott Baker 49, Nick Blackburn 27 (there's the awful, probably not helped by giving up 4 HR's), Livan Hernandez 50, and Slowey again with an 89 (and there is the great). The bullpen. Good God, is this the best bullpen that gets zero love from the media? This week, 15.1 IP, 1 stinking unearned run allowed with a WHIP of 0.86, 15 K's and 0 HR's.

The oh 'fer club. Guess who? Carlos Gomez (.263/.295/.370). And not just twice, but three times. I know Gomez has less then 500 MLB AB's. But...isn't it time to move him out of the lead off spot until he earns that spot in the line up? The Silver Slugger Award goes to Joe Mauer with 10 total bases (3 2b and 1 HR), with runner up honors to Brendon Harris with 8 total bases (2 HR's). As a team, they batted .269/.320/.463. Not bad. The starting pitchers they faced while putting up those numbers include: Jake Peavy (2.77 ERA), Greg Maddux (3.52 ERA), Josh Banks (2.33 ERA), Seth McClung (4.25 ERA), Manny Parra (3.95 ERA) and Ben Sheets (2.83 ERA).

The week ahead. Man, there is no way I'm saying **** and pis sing off Karma. The Twins need to have a winning six game home stand against the Tigers and Indians to keep pace with the White Sox, not to mention keeping the Tigers buried firmly in third place. No predictions other then the Twins come out of this week with at least four wins.