It has not been the best season in Minnesota so far. The Twins sit in last place in the AL Central, with a 4-10 record. Their -26 run differential is among the worst in the league. They’ve lost four straight games, two of which were of the walk-off variety against the Rays. Manager Ron Gardenhire is giving impassioned speeches, and the team is still struggling. This morning, they pulled one of the ultimate “team in turmoil” cards out of their deck: they swapped closers, demoting Joe Nathan and letting Matt Capps handle the ninth inning. Capps has been better than Nathan this year, but it’s more by default than anything else. Below the cut is a look at their stats and more thoughts on whether or not the Twins and their fans should be worrying right now.
| Pitcher | IP | SV | BLSV | ERA | K | BB | HR |
| Capps | 8 | 0 | 1 | 3.86 | 3 | 0 | 1 |
| Nathan | 5 1/3 | 3 | 2 | 8.44 | 3 | 5 | 1 |
Nathan has been one of the league’s best closers during his career, with the exception of last season, when he missed the entire year recovering from Tommy John surgery. Capps has been the inferior pitcher over the course of his career, and with only three strikeouts in eight innings this season, he’s not lighting the world on fire. Gardenhire seems to be making this move based solely on the last two games Nathan has thrown in against the Rays, where he blew the save in each one. It’s crazy to remove your best reliever from the spot in the pen generally given to your best reliever. This could work out in the long run for the Twins, as Gardenhire could use Nathan in situations where the best pitcher is necessary, as opposed to strictly throwing him into the fire during save situations.
But the issues with the back end of the bullpen are just the tip of the iceberg with the Twins. They placed star catcher Joe Mauer on the DL with “weak legs” after Mauer was battling a virus that caused him to be very weak. Now, for a catcher to have weak legs, that’s not a good sign. Many speculated that Mauer would have to be moved from behind the plate before his mammoth contract was over, and this recent injury, combined with Mauer’s knee surgery in 2009, could necessitate a move evern quicker than imagined for Twins management. With the trade of top prospect Wilson Ramos for Capps last season, the Twins don’t have an in-house solution that would be immediately ready to replace Mauer. That could be troublesome if Mauer keeps getting banged up behind the dish. If the Twins are forced to give Drew Butera 300 at bats (or more) this year behind the plate, they’re not making the playoffs.
The offense has also given Minnesota reason to be concerned. Only two players on the team have an OPS over .800: Denard Span and Jason Kubel, who are barely over that mark. No one on the team has a slugging percentage over .460, and the team has hit a pathetic total of four home runs. The entire offense is struggling. In his return from a concussion that sidelined him for the back end of the 2010 season, Justin Morneau has a .552 OPS and looks like a shell of the player that won the AL MVP award a few years back. Even Mauer was struggling, with a .554 mark before being placed on the DL. Pieces of the Twins that are usually solid and complimentary, like Michael Cuddyer and Jim Thome, are also struggling terribly.
The Twins offense won’t continue to struggle, though. The hitters are just too good to hit like this all season. But you know what? While the stars will eventually come around, the supplementary bats might not. Right now, the Twins are walking at a league-low 6.2% clip. That’s terrible. The Twins bats have also been a little unlucky, but not terribly so. When looking at batting average on balls in play (BABIP, which determines a player or team’s batting average on balls that land in the field in play. In other words, it excludes home runs and strikeouts from the equation), Minnesota’s is .281. The league average is always right around .300. There are a few teams worse than Minnesota in that regard right now.
One other key component to the Twins’ struggles has been the performance of ace starter Francisco Liriano. In his three starts this season, Liriano has thrown 14 1/3 innings, walked nine, struck out 12, and allowed 15 runs. For a guy who had an excellent 2010 season, this performance is simply unacceptable. Liriano isn’t giving the Twins a chance to win, and hitters are beating his pitches all around the park. One thing for Twins fans to be really concerned about is Liriano’s velocity. His fastball has dropped two miles per hour from 2010 to 2011, back down to the level he sat at in 2008 and 2009 while he was still recovering from Tommy John surgery. Liriano is throwing the fewest first strikes of his career, and you have to wonder if the issues with Liriano are mental as opposed to physical. Gardenhire told Liriano that he needed to pitch to contact more, and Liriano is better served as a guy who misses bats. Liriano might be trying to respect his manager’s wishes as opposed to pitching the way he did last year, when he was very successful.
My overall point is that the Twins are too talented of a team to continue to be in last place for much longer. The AL Central is typically one of the weaker division’s in the game, and you have to think that the hot starts by the Indians and Royals will soon cool down. But if the Twins don’t start hitting soon, the hole they’ve dug themselves could be too much to overcome.
