The Twins Are Who We Thought They Were

The general consensus when it comes to baseball teams and their early season success or failure is that you cannot judge until the Memorial Day weekend. Prior to that, it’s simply too early to tell if a team is legitimately good (as the Washington Nationals appear to be) or overachieving (as the New York Mets are expected to be). Alternatively, it’s too early to tell if a team is simply off to a slow start (Los Angeles Angels) or if they are simply a legitimately bad team (Minnesota Twins).

Yes, now that the Memorial Day holiday is safely behind us, we can finally begin to own up to the fact that most fans have already arrived at – this team stinks. At 16-32, we can form a fairly good idea of what this team is – the short version is simple. The 2012 Minnesota Twins are an adequate offensive team with an aging, injury prone first baseman, a patchwork outfield of a current star (Span) future star (Revere) and a rental bat (Willingham), a broken and spotty infield (The good: Dozier, The Bad: Casilla, The Rental: Carroll, The Ugly: Plouffe at 3^rd) and a superstar catcher who will never appease the fans unless he gives back a large portion of his massive (DESERVED!!!) contract.

The funny thing is – this rag tag bunch of misfits is probably good enough to push across 75 to 85 wins. The true problem with the 2012 Minnesota Twins lies in the pitching staff. From the rotation to bullpen, this pitching staff is simply horrid. Take a look at the opening day staff:

Carl Pavano: 2-4, 5.46 ERA (Sadly, this is the pinnacle of the opening day staff)

Anthony Swarzak: 0-4, 5.75 ERA – Demoted to bullpen after 3 bad starts

Liam Hendriks: 0-2, 9.00 ERA – Started strong, fell apart after 2 starts, demoted to AAA

Nick Blackburn: 1-4, 8.37 ERA – “Injured” frequently, utterly hittable

Francisco Liriano: 0-5, 8.47 ERA – Demoted to bullpen where he continued to be horrid

Matt Maloney: DFA’d, now in Rochester

Jeff Gray: 3-0, 4.35 ERA – Spotty reliever, has his moments (both good and bad)

Alex Burnett: 2-0, 2.84 ERA – Much improved from 2011, a rare bright spot

Jared Burton: 0-0, 4.34 ERA – Started 2012 unhittable, has come back to Earth recently

Brain Duensing: 0-2, 2.92 ERA – Solid long relief out of the ‘pen, has had breakdowns

Glen Perkins: 0-1, 3.60 ERA – The nice bright spot of the bullpen

Matt Capps: 0-3, 3.79 ERA – Exactly what we expected him to be

That paints the picture pretty well. Of the five opening day starters, none (0!) of them have an ERA below 5 (!). Three had an ERA above 8 – that is unbelievably bad.

While the team has fixed the starter problem slightly with Scott Diamond, who has been a solid starter with a 3-1, 2.27 ERA in 5 starts and PJ Walters 2-1 2.96 ERA in 4 starts, the fact remains that Blackburn, Pavano and Liriano are still going to be taking the mound regularly this season. With that starting rotation, we can expect the team to be exactly what they are right now – bad.