Minnesota Twins: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—All in One Outing

I take full responsibility for the Twins loss today; today I was the antithesis of King Midas. Arsenal, The Twins, Tiger Woods, The Cubs, and the team I wagered on, the A's, are all losing or lost as I write this. Sorry guys, my bad.

Superstitions aside, today was all about the return of Minnesota Twins’ Francisco Liriano, who had moments of all three categories: good, bad, and ugly.

Any rational fan would know that’s to be expected. Expecting the Liriano of old was foolish at best, but exactly what we would see was largely a mystery.

It is worth noting that his outing could have been very different without much trouble. Many of his pitches were extremely close and could have gone either way, and given how many 3-2 counts he had, that's the difference between a strike out and a walk.

Even so, he threw too many pitches, 90 in 4.1 innings, surrendered too many runners, 11, and in the end, gave up too many runs.

While Liriano didn't produce either of the conditions for a quality start, he also didn't pitch the Twins out of the game.

The JV lineup behind him staked him to a 1-0 lead and went home, leaving the lefty out to dry. Brian Bannister moved to 3-0 with his three-hitter, continuing his run of very solid starts. 

Liriano did mix his pitches well, though seemed to have trouble locating his slider, his most devastating pitch.

Off-speed pitches are often the last to come back after injuries like this, so his lack of control on those isn't worrying yet. His control will come back as he pitches more, and some of those walks will become strike outs, others will become homeruns as he just catches a little too much of the plate.

He isn't back yet, but all the pieces are there for him to be a dominant pitcher again—perhaps not as good as he was before his injury; pitchers rarely make true 100 percent recoveries from Tommy John surgery.

However, his start today was promising, which produces some hard choices for the Twins.

He will likely get one more start before Kevin Slowey returns from the DL, but when he does, they will have six pitchers for five starter spots.

If Liriano improves in his next outing, decreases his walk rate and throws 5-6 innings, the spot is likely to remain his (although it could be Nick Blackburn who suffers for it).

However, if Liriano produces another start like this one, showing little improvement, I would expect to see Slowey get another shot at securing his rotation spot. 

The Good: Brian Bass: 2.1IP, 0H, 0ER, 1BB.

Bass came in after Liriano began to struggle in the 5th, and kept the Twins within striking distance, surrendering only one base runner in his outing. 

The Bad: Francisco Liriano: 4.2 IP, 6H, 4ER, 5BB, 4K.

It’s a start, not a superb one, but if he can build off of this in his next few starts and make solid contributions before the all-star break, it will be well worth the loss.

The Ugly: The Offense: 3 hits, BB.

They weren't patient enough, they had trouble even getting on base, let alone getting into scoring position. Carlos Gomez went 0-4 after going 0-5 last night. He went 2-14 on the series.