Shutting Down Liriano ?

The Minnesota Twins are close to kicking young phenom Francisco Liriano from the starting rotation. In all honesty its not a surprise as the kid has struggled ever since his return last year from Tommy John surgery.

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“We’re talking about a lot of different things,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “The one thing we don’t want to see is him get too far in the dumps. This guy’s got a high ceiling; he’s got great pitches. Right now, he’s pretty frustrated, and we’ll talk about that.”

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First the stats.

2006 - 16 starts, 12-3 record and a 2.16 ERA. 121 innings pitched, 89 hits, 32 walks and 144 strikeouts.
2008 - 14 starts, 6-4 record and a 3.91 ERA. 76 innings pitched, 74 hits, 32 walks and 67 strikeouts.
2009 - 21 starts, 4-11 record and a 5.63 ERA. 118 and 1/3 innings pitched, 127 hits, 55 walks and 106 strikeouts.

As you see his career has been on a downward spiral ever since his return. The thing that stands out to me is his hits, walks and strikeout totals. The negative categories of hits and walks are rising, while his strikeouts are declining. His WHIP has risen from a nice cool 1.00 in 2006 to a damaging 1.54 in 2009.

There’s three things that could be the cause of that.

1. Hitters have adjusted to his style of pitching and the stuff he possesses.
2. He’s suffering from control problems and needs to work out the kinks in his delivery.
3. There could also be a mental block that’s keeping him from trusting his stuff. You know the whole doubting their ability after a surgery.

If you’ve watched the Twins you would have to say number two and three is more likely. There have been occasions when Liriano looked like that pitcher from 2006 and in those outings the hitters couldn’t handle him. So yea, you’d have to think its something mechanical or even mental.

When looking at the stats you see his strikeout to walk ratio has dropped from 4.50 in 2006 to a present day 1.93. His strikeout rate per nine innings dropped from 10.7 to 8.1, which is still a fairly good total but alarming when you see such a lot strikeout to walk ratio.

In addition to walking more hitters, he’s also giving up more hits. His hits per nine innings has risen from a very good 6.6 to a bad 9.7. Once again not good.

What this tells me is that he’s got some major control problems. Pretty much when he’s not walking people he’s still missing his spots and leaving pitches where the hitters can connect.

Being such a young pitcher, still only 25, the best bet is to give Liriano a break. Some time away from the rotation might help the kid clear his head, while working on his delivery. The above quote from Gardenhire indicates this is something the team might consider. The problem is they don’t really have anyone else they can put in the rotation.

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“The options are very limited, we can’t go with a four-man rotation. We just don’t have much starting pitching left. It’s not like we can say, ‘Take him out and put those other guys in.’ You start telling me who those other guys are, I’m sure some fans have some ideas, but they’re not on our ballclub.”

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Liriano’s campaign was a thrill to watch, the kid was absolutely amazing. He’s shown at times he can still be that pitcher, so hopefully Gardenhire and Liriano can figure this out and get him right.