Panic Time?
With exactly one good start from our group of young pitchers (minus Baker) is it time to hit the panic button in Twins land? It is more than possible that all of our starting pitchers experience some sort of sophomore slump. Hopefully this isn’t the case. I like to think that the Twins were careful enough with this group last year.
Kevin Slowey gave up about 100 hits to the Blue Jays last night. On Sunday Blackburn was cruising until the wheels fell of. Same goes for Liriano on Saturday. RA Dickey doesn’t really count, and the offense couldn’t do anything for Perkins on Thursday. What does this all mean? Probably nothing, since its been 8 games. However, if we can’t beat teams like Seattle and Toronto, we might be in trouble. It helps that our divisional rivals are struggling as well.
So what do you guys think? Is there some silver lining I’m missing to these first 8 games? At what point to we have to get worried about our pitchers? 3 starts, 4 starts, July?
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They do look terrible. In fact all of our players look pretty bad, on the mound, at the plate, and in the field. They just look rusty.
But I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t come around and start to play well again.
This isn’t the only 3-5 stretch we’ll go through this season. I don’t think it’s time to panic. Unless your name is Luis Ayala. In which case you probably shouldn’t show your face in public until you have at least one outing where you don’t give up runs.
I agree, no time to panic as it’s way too early for that… look at the teams you mentioned, they are leading their divisions (Seattle, Toronto) Do you expect them to be leading a month from now? or at the end of the season? Probably not… Like Sirsean already pointed out, we look bad all over, Morneau, Young, Crede, have all struggled, at least they’ve all hit HRs, but 4 total? Biggest concern still is the bullpen, I dont think we’ve addressed the off season issue at all and I wonder how they will hold up as they only get a few games to figure things out before it’s too late… Ayala, Breslow, Humber, and Crain all look bad… Guerrier seems to be holding his own and Nathan will be Nathan… but the others are big ?.
With Seattle starting off well and Toronto playing really well, then we face the Angels, Red Sox, Indians, and Rays to close out April… If we can go 11-11 in April, I’d be okay with that…
I’d take a .500 april against tough teams, all without Mauer, anyday. Lets hope Perkins picks up the slack tonight like he tried to do last week.
If we drop another game to the Blue Jays it’s going to be tough to finish the month at .500.
Also, part of the reason the Mariners, White Sox, and Blue Jays are atop their respective divisions is because we let them beat us.
The key is that we need to start playing well. Without that, it doesn’t matter what anyone else does, or what our record is. We’re not going to be able to spend six months backing into the playoffs.
And given that Mauer’s not going to just step right in and be amazing, we’re going to need to be playing well enough to carry him until he can get it together and carry us.
One more loss, and Gardy needs to lock the guys in a the clubhouse and give them some sort of impassioned speech that inspires them to play better and win and have fun, et cetera. You know, like in those movies.
I’m sounding the DOOOOOOM alarm, personally. (Just kidding.) The hitting’s been inconsistent, but that’s not what worries me- I’m bugged by the lack of decent pitching from just about everybody.
I’m sorely disappointed that Slowey delivered two bad starts in a row (I kind of expected that from Blackburn, to be honest, and Liriano got hosed by the umps in Chicago). If Perkins pitches another 1-run game tonight, I’ll have to rethink my assumptions.
Maybe Baker’s the glue that keep the rotation together? Yeah, that’s it…
At least the Indians look bad.