The End Of Interleague

Sunday marked the conclusion of the Twins’ interleague schedule for 2012 – in fact; it marked the likely end of traditional interleague play as we know it. With the Houston Astros moving to the AL West next season, both the AL and NL will have 15 teams, facilitating a move to a “full-time” interleague schedule. We’ll delve into the pros and cons of that in a future post, for now, let’s focus on the Twins.

Coming into this stretch of interleague play, the Twins were riding a 7-2 winning steak and playing some of the best baseball of early June. Their interleague scheduled lined up favorably as well with the first 3 matchups being against losing teams (Chicago, Philadelphia and Milwaukee). Of their final two matchups, only the series against the Reds looked tough on paper.

Twins fans, myself included, were left to speculate “What if?” What if this team continues this hot streak and starts to creep up on the division leaders? What if this team is finally playing like it is capable of?

With a hot team and a weak interleague schedule, the Twins (and their fans) entered the middle of June with a lot of hope and their sights set high. Then this happened:

Vs Chicago: Series win (2-1)

Vs Philadelphia: Series loss (1-2)

Vs Milwaukee: Series loss (1-2)

Vs Pittsburgh: Series loss (1-2)

Vs Cincinnati: Series win (2-1)

Time to come back down to earth Twins fans. This team’s hot start to June was just as we feared – a mere illusion.

While the Twins did manage to take 2 of 3 from a very good Cincinnati team by rallying in the 9^th inning yesterday – the tone of a 7-8 interleague showing (9-9 overall) shows the true colors of this 2012 Twins team. They’re a good team with flaws and they’re still a ways away from contending.

News & Notes:

Major League Baseball needs to have an answer for the DH rule by the start of next season. Preferably, they’ll elect to extend the DH into NL games, regardless of the home park (essentially duplicating the AL rules). After watching Twins pitchers look ugly at the plate during the Pittsburgh and Cincinnati series, I’ve seen enough pitchers hitting for my lifetime.

Traditionalists detest the DH rule and boast about the strategy required to hit with your pitcher. I could honestly care less about strategy – I want to see good baseball. A pitcher functioning as an auto out is not good baseball.

Moving the rule to both leagues would also eliminate the AL free agent advantage. Essentially AL teams can (and do) sign big name free agents to long term deals (Fielder, Pujols, A-Rod) because the players (and teams) know that the later years of that contract can be played out at DH.

NL teams would be on a level playing field when bidding for potential free agents and teams such as the Cubs would not be strung up by a bloated contract like the one they have in Alfonso Soriano (who would be a perfect DH for the Cubs – if they were allowed to use him as such).

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Matt Capps has been on the bench over the past week due to shoulder soreness. Capps made an appearance during the Twins 6-0 loss to the Reds on Saturday, and afterwards told Manager Ron Gardenhire that his soreness and inflammation had returned. The team announced after yesterday’s game that they were promoting Rochester reliever Tyler Robertson and this morning announced that the corresponding move would be to place Capps on the 15 day DL.

In the meantime, the Twins will go to a closer by committee – choosing to use both Glen Perkins and Jared Burton to finish off games. Perkins and Burton both have the stuff to be closers in the future, so it will be nice for the Twins to see what they have at the back end of their bullpen for a few games.

The downside to the Capps injury is that any sustained absence likely hurts his trade value. As I’ve said before, Capps is worth one thing and one thing only to the Twins – prospects.

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Brian Duensing began the year as a long reliever out of the Twins bullpen, a role that he was excelling at during the first half of this year. However, due to injuries to Carl Pavano and PJ Walters and the ineffective pitching of Cole DeVries, the Twins were forced to pull Duensing out of the ‘pen for Saturday’s start. Duensing threw three strong innings before obviously tiring in the 4^th, yielding 4 runs before being pulled from the game.

Duensing had not pitched any longer than 3 innings this season, so it wasn’t surprising to see him struggle beyond that point. The Twins announced that they plan on keeping Duensing in the rotation for at least one more start, with other starts being made as necessary. If Duensing can build up his arm strength, he may become the Twins second best starter – he was a solid starter for the team in 2010 and looked every bit a great starter for his first three innings on Saturday.

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Trevor Plouffe has 10 home runs in June. The record for home runs in one month for the Twins is held by Harmon Killebrew, who hit 14 in 1964. While Killer’s record is likely safe, that doesn’t diminish what Plouffe has done in June. If Plouffe can continue to swing a dangerous bat, the Twins big “who plays third?” problem may have finally found an answer.

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Good Frankie or Bad Teams?

Francisco Liriano has rediscovered his pitching mojo recently – turning an ugly 0-5 record and ERA of 9.45 into a 1-2 record and 2.67 ERA in his most recent 5 starts. The questions remains, was this due to an improved Liriano? Or, was it due to lower tier opponents?

We’ll likely find out tonight as Liriano takes to the mound against the AL Central leading White Sox. If Liriano can keep the game close and not get knocked around the field, I think Twins fans can stop fearing for the worst each time Liriano takes to the mound. A strong outing tonight will also likely cement Liriano’s rising trade value. Conversely, a bad outing sends Liriano right back to the junk pile. No pressure Frankie, but a lot is riding on this start.