Twins Take Two

After starting off the 4 game set with Toronto looking as bad as they have all year, the Twins put together a solid 3 games from Friday through Sunday to keep the optimism train alive. (We won't call it running yet - but it still has something in the tank).

The 4 game series was highlighted by Scott Diamond's fantastic outing Sunday afternoon. Once again, Diamond took to the mound when the Twins needed a win and did everything in his power (short of swinging the bat himself) to deliver the 'W'.

Diamond went 7 strong innings, only giving up 5 hits and walking no one, while striking out 4 batters. So far this season, Twins starting pitchers have only gone 7 innings five times - two of those five now belong to Diamond.

Saturday's game, while ending in a disappointing loss for the Twins (2-1), did have the positive benefit of another solid pitching performance - this time from recent call up PJ Walters. Walters through 6 solid innings, holding the Blue Jays to 2 runs and striking out 6. The offense failed to turn scoring opportunities into runs and left a staggering 9 runners on base while going 0-9 with runners in scoring position. Saturday's game was a picture perfect example of the Twins problems this season. When one aspect of this team succeeds, the other disappears. The Blue Jays didn't win that go in so much as the Twins simply lost it.

All in all, a 2-2 split with a good Blue Jays team is something to be happy about. The Twins are finally in the double digit win column at 10-24 and are (surprisingly) only 8 games back of the first place Indians. Cleveland comes into to Target Field on Monday for a quick 2 game series. I'm not expecting much out of the Twins this season, but a good Cleveland series can do a lot to build confidence for this team.


Pavano To Miss Next Start 


UPDATED: Pavano says the injury will not cause him to miss a start. He's still planning to go on Monday night against the Indians.

Reports came out early Sunday morning that Carl Pavano underwent an MRI and discovered some shoulder inflammation over the weekend. This was likely the cause of the bad outing Pavano had on Thursday night. Pavano's velocity was down and his control seemed to be lackluster at best. The Twins didn't comment as the severity of Pavano's injury, but it looks like it will only cause him to miss one start.


Plouffe In Trouble? 

Trevor Plouffe had a great opportunity coming into this series with the Blue Jays. With the demotion of Danny Valencia, Plouffe had a chance to start at 3B and prove to the Twins that he deserved a regular place in the lineup. Sadly, Plouffe did very little with this opportunity, managing to go 1-13 with a double (that ended up being a triple on a throwing error). Plouffe is hitting .140 this season and simply looks overmatched at the plate. Defensively, he's a below average infielder and simply an adequate outfielder.

Plouffe is out of options, so the Twins would have to try to pass him through waivers to send him down to AAA. At this point, it's hard to imagine who would jump on Plouffe with as poorly as he's been playing - so it may be worth the risk for the Twins to send him down. The main concern would obviously be who would fill in at 3B - with the obvious answer being Alexi Casilla for the short term and whoever the team can scrounge up as the long term solution.

The Twins have to be asking themselves if Plouffe is that much better than Casilla and if they wouldn't be better served with another bat from the minors on the roster.