May Review
GM Analysis/Feeling:
Extremely mixed feelings about this month. At time we've looked like a team that can contend with the heavyweights, but at times we've looked like a 3rd place team at best. We were extremely inconsistent this month, we'd win 2 then lose 2 or 3, then win 4, we weren't consistent at any time this month. We also made a bad habit of losing to the teams we should be beating, but handling the teams we need to beat like we're defending Champs. We nearly swept our division leaders, at at one point shortly after were tied for first in the division, but shortly after got swept by the sub-.500 Rockies and had two of three taken from us by the Reds, to drop to 4 games back of Cleveland and lost the outright Wild Card lead, and now tie with the Tigers. If we're going to stay in this for the long haul we need to beat the teams we should beat and continue to play well against the ones we need to beat.
Offensive Report:
The offense was better this month, despite Morneau going down for two weeks of the month. Francouer provided us with a huge offensive boost, especially early on when he was hitting nearly .500 as a Twin. He regressed to a somewhat human level of production, and has hit .308, with a .904 OPS and 5 homers as a Twin. Delmon Young slumped a little early this month, but he got his average back up to .285 and leads the team with 49 RBI's. Gomez still isn't hitting that well, and only has an OPS of .624, but hes raised his average by about 60 points in the past two weeks and leads both leagues in steals with 24 (to only 2 caught stealing). Jason Kubel has also shown hes worth his weight as a hitter, hitting .279 with 10 homers and an .880 OPS this season. Morneau is still leading the team in batting, at .314, and playing great defense, but hes hitting for almost no power. Through these first two months of the season he only has 3 homers with a .442 slugging percent, he missed two weeks, but you would still expect the power numbers to be better for someone who hit 31 homers last season, and 34 the year before that.
Hitter of the Month: RF Jeff Francouer - (as a Twin) .308 batting average, .390 on base percent, .514 slugging percent, .904 OPS, 5 homers, 17 RBI's, 3 steals
Pitching Report:
Outside of Liriano all the starters came back down to earth, as I expected. Boof's ERA climbed by about 3 runs over the course of this month, from the mid-2.00 range to 5.17, and Baker's ERA climbed from about 2.75 to 3.99. Liriano is making fans in Minnesota forget all about Johan Santana though. Liriano is 7-2, with a 3.19 ERA, and an AL leading 81 K's, in 79 innings pitched. Joe Nathan had been a machine until he blew his first save, with an ERA of around 0.40 until the implosion. Outside of him, however, the bullpen has been unreliable at best. Livan threw two complete game shutouts in the month, but has been extremely inconsistent on the month as well. We've had a lot of difficulty finding a reliable #5 starter in light of Humber's injury, and even switched to a 4 man rotation for a few weeks after the injury. We've rotated through Jesse Crain, Nick Blackburn, and Brian Duensing will make his first start in that role in early June.
Pitcher of the Month: Francisco Liriano - 7-2, 3.19 ERA, 81 strikeouts, .234 batting average against, 79 innings pitched, 29BB
Injury Report:
SP Phil Humber - Broken forearm, out 33 days
Down on the farm:
OF Denard Span (AAA) - .346/.409/.514/.923, 20 XBH
Batting Stats:
HTML Code:
Player Name Team AB H HR RBI Avg OBP SLG SB CS
Gomez, Carlos MIN 246 60 3 27 .244 .278 .346 24 2
Young, Delmon MIN 228 65 10 49 .285 .333 .500 13 1
Francoeur, Jeff MIN 219 66 12 40 .301 .362 .553 3 0
Mauer, Joe MIN 213 60 1 19 .282 .357 .362 7 1
Casilla, Alexi MIN 203 52 1 22 .256 .290 .340 10 3
Lamb, Mike MIN 201 59 8 35 .294 .339 .532 3 1
Kubel, Jason MIN 165 46 10 36 .279 .335 .545 3 1
Everett, Adam MIN 160 33 2 16 .206 .273 .288 2 2
Morneau, Justin MIN 156 49 3 17 .314 .384 .442 2 1
Punto, Nick MIN 61 12 0 4 .197 .355 .246 0 2
Monroe, Craig MIN 45 11 0 7 .244 .306 .311 0 0
Redmond, Mike MIN 18 4 0 2 .222 .222 .333 0 0
Tolbert, Matt MIN 15 5 0 1 .333 .333 .467 1 0
Liriano, Francisco MIN 4 1 0 0 .250 .250 .500 0 0
Baker, Scott MIN 3 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Hernandez, Livan MIN 3 1 0 0 .333 .333 .333 0 0
Bonser, Boof MIN 2 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Pridie, Jason MIN 1 1 0 2 1.000 .667 1.000 0 0
Rincon, Juan MIN 1 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Duensing, Brian MIN 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Nathan, Joe MIN 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Crain, Jesse MIN 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Neshek, Pat MIN 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Reyes, Dennys MIN 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
McCardell, Mike MIN 0 0 0 0 .000 .000 .000 0 0
Pitching Stats:
HTML Code:
Player Name Team Starts W L ERA IP K SV CG OBA
Liriano, Francisco MIN 12 7 2 3.19 79.0 81 0 0 .234
Baker, Scott MIN 12 7 4 3.99 79.0 49 0 1 .268
Bonser, Boof MIN 12 4 6 5.17 78.1 57 0 1 .297
Hernandez, Livan MIN 12 4 3 4.71 78.1 37 0 2 .283
Crain, Jesse MIN 2 3 1 4.50 28.0 18 0 0 .255
Neshek, Pat MIN 0 2 1 5.11 24.2 27 0 0 .228
Rincon, Juan MIN 0 0 1 4.50 24.0 22 0 0 .258
Reyes, Dennys MIN 0 2 1 3.80 23.2 23 0 0 .250
Nathan, Joe MIN 0 1 1 1.33 20.1 17 17 0 .176
Duensing, Brian MIN 0 0 0 0.00 0.0 0 0 0 .000
McCardell, Mike MIN 0 0 0 0.00 0.0 0 0 0 .000
Originally Posted by Kobie
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