Another fun game down at Comerica Park tonight. Nate Robertson took the mound and looked very rough right out of the gate but was able to pull himself together and pitch 6.1 innings. This might not sound like a long outing but for Tiger starters this year Nate’s outing was an extended one.

It felt quite cold out there with a slight breeze coming into the park the entire game but the Tiger bats remained hot. Four home runs were hit between Gary Sheffield, Magglio Ordonez, Carlos Guillen and Miguel Cabrera. For the Twins, Craig Monroe returned to Detroit and had some success for the first time this year. He’s been as cold for Minnesota as he was for Detroit.

Below are a few more pictures from today’s matchup:

1. Robertson being pulled for “Left Lat Tightness”. Since I was at the game I didn’t know what was wrong until I arrived back home but while at the game I didn’t see anything wrong.

2. Lefty Clay Rapada took the mound in the eighth inning to face Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau. He fell behind both batters but won out in the end.

3. Magglio Ordonez doubles in Placido Polanco to tie the game. Placido’s one-out walk in the eighth was key to the comeback.

4. Jessie Crain had a large number of mound visitors but it didn’t seem to help, whatever the strategy was.

5. Miguel Cabrera touching home after his 2-run shot to left field.

Pretty surprising move as they don’t appear to have a major need in the outfield and $3.8M is a bit much for a backup outfielder. A bit much for Craig Monroe as well.

What has changed? Well, in 2006 Detroit had the opportunity to put some of their best pitchers out there to face Santana. That didn’t work well so this year they went with rookies and back of the rotation starters and have found the key to success.

Through this year, Tiger batters seem to step up when presented with a challenge and have surprisingly hard times when, on paper at least, they should have been able to step up. Case in-point: Edwin Jackson, who Detroit had a hard time cracking in two appearances.

So far Mauer is being silent on how long he expects to be out:

“You don’t want to put a timetable on it,” Mauer said. “It could be two weeks, or it could be more. Hopefully it’s not much more.”

This means he will be out for next weekend’s series against the Tigers at the Metrodome. Joe went 4-for-10 with a walk and a home run in the last series against Detroit. Instead, the Twins have called up Chris Heintz to fill in as catcher, Heintz is batting .277 in Class AAA Rochester.

Injury Prone AL Central: A number of AL Central teams have already been battling injuries to key players this season. White Sox have offensive leaders Jim Thome and Scott Podsednik on the DL, Cleveland recently took key starter Cliff Lee off the DL, Twins now have their batting champ Mauer and the Tigers have crutical setup man Joel Zumaya on the disabled list in addition to starter Kenny Rogers. The Royals have Reggie Sanders on the 15-day DL and recently got back injured second-baseman Mark Grudzielanek who made some big plays against the Tigers yesterday.

While I’m certainly not surprised to see the Twins giving themselves options within their rotations I found these interesting. Extremely little was given up to give both these guys a shot and this could pan out for the Twins. Sidney Ponson, who has been his own worst enemy for the most part, likely has the best chance at working his way into the lineup. Sidney started in the Cardinals rotation last year and faced the Tigers once, during their mid-year sweep of the current Champs, before getting let go mid-year.

Brady Voyles, also with the Cardinals organization last year, has done very little since his last MLB appearance in 2003 with the Royals and pitching only 18 innings last year at Memphis.

In a separate note, DTown is getting mentioned throughout the Tiger Baseball blogosphere. I would like to welcome all of you who are new to DTown Baseball. I hope you enjoy the site and feel free to comment!

The Minnesota Twins off season has been fairly inactive compared to many teams throughout Major League Baseball. That isn’t to say that there hasn’t been changes, though the Twins likely don’t need to many tweaks before ’07. Minnesota has always been known for their ability to fully utilize their farm system for growth from within but don’t let that get you to thinking this is a rebuilding year for them; It is not. And it is very apparent that the Twins don’t think so as well, as evidenced by picking up the $12M option on Torii Hunter for ’07, though there is likely a longer term relationship in store for him.

Probably the largest change for the Twins is the loss of a major member of their 2006 starting rotation: Brad Radke. Radke epitomizes the Twins franchise players having started and ended his 12 year career with the team posting a 4.22 lifetime ERA. We’ll get back to the impact this will have on the Tigers in a moment.

Other notable moves:

• Twins sign one year contract worth $2.5M with Rondell White, someone Tiger fans should be familiar with. Though he makes a point to say he is looking for an everyday role and will show up for spring training ten pounds lighter. Good luck.
• Twins sign a one year contract worth $1.5M with Jeff Cirillo (formerly of the Brewers) who likely will be used as a utility infielder and DH.
• Willie Eyre and the Twins part ways while they re-sign Luis Rodriguez. Last year was Eyre’s first year in the bigs and it wasn’t a bad year posting a 5.31 ERA in 42 appearances and 59.3 innings from the bullpen. He has since been signed to a Minor League contract with the Texas Rangers and will be fighting for a spot in spring training.
• Twins select shortstop Alejandro Machado in the Rule 5 draft. Alejandro has seen a total of 5 ABs in the big leagues all in 2005 for Boston, though he batted .300 for Pawtucket in ’05 but went down a bit in ’06 hitting .260.

One issue that is still hurting is the loss of Francisco Liriano to Tommy John surgery for the ’07 season. Even then, it might be rather difficult to get back to the level of play that he exhibited during the 2006 season.

That sums up the Twins off season moves thus far. Now we’ll take a look at what this means for the Detroit Tigers in ’07.

Starting Rotation

The Twins started the ’06 season with the following starting lineup:

1. Johan Santana
2. Brad Radke
3. Carlos Silva
4. Kyle Lohse
5. Scott Baker

This was not a successful lineup and the Twins quickly changed the lineup in mid-May calling up Boof Bonser from Rochester and moving Francisco Liriano from the bullpen into the starting rotation. From here the rotation was not stable and once Liriano left the rotation due to injury the Twins called up Matt Garza from Rochester. Garza is one of Minnesota’s highly touted prospects and had only pitched 34 innings of AAA ball and started the year in High-A before being called into the Twins rotation. Lohse was traded mid season to the Reds for a minor league player.

The Twins currently list their rotation as:

1. Johan Santana
2. Boof Bonser
3. Carlos Silva
4. Matt Garza
5. Glen Perkins

The only new face here is Glen Perkins who spent most of last year in AA New Britain with a 3.91 ERA and only pitched a statistically insignificant 5.2 innings with the Twins. Perkins never faced the Tigers so we cannot look at his stats there but the Tigers have seen the rest of the lineup so lets see how they fared. We’ll also take a look at other pitchers we are likely to see.

As you can see, Johan Santana was the most consistent starter for the Twins and that might continue into next season. Many of the starters are very new, though as we know that can sometimes turn out very well for a team. Many pitchers tendency to give up the long ball to the Tigers was an issue, this was certainly the case for Scott Baker, Silva and to some extent Santana though his ability to strike out the Tigers in amazing numbers certainly helped his cause.

We are likely to see some struggles and adjustments through the start of the ’07 season as I doubt much of their starting rotation will be fully set or comfortable after spring training. The Twins ability to solidify this lineup and have it provide quality starts will be a major part of their potential success next year. I have reasonable confidence that they will be able to do so as they have incredible depth in their bullpen and farm system to select from.

Bullpen

The Twins have a very promising bullpen, one that held very well in ’06 and will continue to do so into ’07. A many number of these bullpen member wreaked havoc on the Tigers lineup last year. We won’t take a look at each member and zero in on a few that are likely to stand in the Tigers way next year.

The core of the Twins bullpen consists of, along w/ their ERA vs the Tigers and overall ERA:

Each of these pitchers performed admirably against the Tigers in ’06 and are a young bunch for the most part. Joe Nathan was their closer and had a great year overall. Don’t let his ERA vs the Tigers fool you, the Tigers had a difficult time figuring him out and the majority of the runs came in one bad outing.

Reyes was good last year as well though the Tigers only faced him for 2.7 innings over 5 outings so long term projections against Detroit would be difficult right now. Neshek was a pleasant addition for the Twins as well, the hard throwing, side-armed, right-hander was added to the bullpen in early July and gave the Tigers right-handed hitters a tough time.

Going into ’07 the Twins have their bullpen very much intact and you can bet on their continued success against the Tigers and MLB.

Hitting

Not too much extra can be said about the Twins offense; they are powerful. They also did not disappoint Twins fans last year against the Tigers. Taking a look at the top 6 Twins players with greater than 15 ABs against the Tigers this past year shows impressive numbers:

Really though most of these stats were accumulated later in the season and there were certainly a few Tiger pitchers who looked forward to facing the Twins battery. All Tiger pitchers who faced the Twins in ten or more innings ended the year with an ERA below 3.38 with the exception of Jeremy Bonderman. I’m sure we all remember Bonderman’s issues with the Twins late in the game. Justin Verlander ended the year with 0.82 ERA over 22 IP against the Twins coming away with a record of 3-0.

Conclusion

Despite being very strong in the bullpen as well as offense, starting pitching will be what holds back the Twins in ’07. Without getting those crucial quality starts the bullpen won’t really be a factor, though there will certainly be times when the Twins can just out slug their opponent.

Overall it will be a successful year for the Twins though this will not be their year against the Tigers. With starting pitching and most of the bullpen still together for Detroit, it will just be too much for the Twins to handle.

The Tigers have 18 games scheduled against Minnesota in ’07, six of which are scheduled at the end of September which could end up proving to be very crucial games. Detroit does have the luxury of having the last series played at home.

Below is the schedule of games:

Tigers win season series 11-7