The Minnesota Twins 2008 baseball season kicks off in 3 days, with a 6:05 game against Torii Hunter and the Anaheim Angels. I am predicting that Hunter will receive 75% cheers vs. 23% boos vs. 2% drunken hollering (Eric Marquardt is going to the game with our group). Why fans continue to boo players that leave their teams as a free agent is beyond me? Arent we all used to this by now? If you get all huffy and puffy every time a guy you root for leaves for supposed greener pastures, you're going to have a hard time watching sports for the remainder of your life. It happens...deal with it and move on. That being said, let's discuss the 2008 Minnesota Twins...
-I'm VERY excited about Delmon Young..like .310, 23 HR, 90 RBI excited. The Twins posess the best collection of outfield arms in the game. Cuddy, Gomez, and Delmon all have bazooka's (isn't cannon getting a little over used when describing a guys arm strength?).
-The pitching scares me. Livan Hernandez is basically going to be a Carlos Silva clone...4.25 ERA, 220 innings pitched, 12-14 record. Hernandez will be an innings gobbler, as well as a Burger King gobbler, and he'll be able to keep the bullpen rested once every five days. Boof is really the only other starter with any thing that resembles experience. After those two, it gets REAL dicey. Baker and Slowey have both been minor league darlings, but have been very inconsistent up in Minnesota. The absolute wild card in this discussion is Francisco Liriano, who I can see doing anything from winning the AL Cy Young award to never pitching in the major leagues again. I have no idea what the Franchise has in store for us this year...it doesn't help that he's about as open about his injuries as Barry Bonds is to steroid discussion. Is Liriano hurting right now? Is he just regaining his 2006 form? Who the hell knows...but what I do know is that the chance to compete and play .500 baseball lies in his surgically repair elbow.
-Kelsie Smith, from the Pioneer Press has a great article on Liriano's recovery...
-Did you know that Joe Mauer has sideburns? I've never heard of such a thing...
-Speaking of Mauer, Joe really needs to step up this year in my eyes. Play through a little pain once in a while, and DH here and there to keep his bat in the lineup. The "Minnesota boy made it big" story starts to wear thin when you realize he's about as durable as Glass Joe from Mike Tyson's Punchout...
-I think Morneau is in for a big year...I hear less and less about him out at the Mpls bars running game on 21 year old St. Thomas girls, which leads me to believe he's getting over that phase and looking to take baseball as seriously as possible. Which should be a scary thought for AL pitchers, as the Canadian has put together monster halves of seasons, but not a complete 162 game dominance...yet. 2008 is the year he goes wire to wire with a .295, 42HR, 130 RBI ass whooping. Eh?
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