I was dubious about Minnesota’s acquisition of Cleveland Indians pitcher Carl Pavano when the trade was announced. I was still upset – no fuming – that the Twins GM Bill Smith hadn’t made a deal for for a veteran starting pitcher or middle relief pitcher that the team desperately needs to stay competitive in the division. The Tigers got Jarrod Washburn from the Mariners for a song and the White Sox managed to work out an equitable trade for San Diego’s Jake Peavy. To make matters worse Smith went on record as saying that “It was a tough market for relievers.” Nonsense. That remark should insult the intelligence of all Twins faithful. If Smith expected fans to believe that the team couldn’t acquire a reliever unless they traded top prospects then he’s a fool. Many teams made deals at the trade deadline for relievers and gave up little to nothing to get them. Pitchers like San Diego’s Cla Meredith and Pittsburgh’s John Grabow, who each could have improved the Twins bullpen immensely, changed teams for paltry sums in terms of player quality.
So when the Pavano deal hit the news headlines I was skeptical from the beginning, not willing to give Pavano a chance to prove something to Twins fans. Well, he did just that tonight by once again dominating the Tigers hitters. In three previous career games against Detroit he posted 3 wins, 13 Ks, 1 walk (1!), 5 earned runs on 18 hits in 23.1 innings pitched for an ERA of 1.93. That’s good. That’s really good! We need a pitcher that can dominate Detroit like that. They’re our roadblock to winning the AL Central and we’ll need a few more big games like that against them to win the division title. Of course it helped Pavano that the Twins put 11 runs on the board because Tiger’s pitcher Justin Verlander had an atypical poor pitching outing.
No matter the outcome tonight the team must win at Detroit tomorrow to maintain pace in the pennant race. The Twins cannot afford to lose a series to the division leader and allow them to gain ground we just got back. Scott Baker takes the mound for Minnesota tomorrow and Washburn will be the starting pitcher for Detroit. Baker has been very, very good lately but Washburn has been tough all year – his ERA is currently 2.93. He had a rough outing last week against Baltimore, his first game in a Detroit uniform, but I expect him to come out strong for tomorrow’s game. The Twins have had reasonably good success against Washburn – in 17 games they have a 7-6 record – so if Baker continues to have his good stuff then I’m predicting a Twins victory.
One last thing: I mentioned the Tigers acquisition of Jarrod Washburn a few times in my blog the past few days and it only now struck me: In 1987 the Tigers were in a pennant race and made a trade with the Atlanta Braves, acquiring veteran pitcher Doyle Alexander for a minor league pitching prospect. Alexander was stellar and went on to post 9 wins with no losses for the Tigers the rest of the regular season and they made the playoffs facing the Minnesota Twins. As most of the Minnesota fan base knows Alexander got owned by the Twins in that series, but probably most everybody forgets who that traded player was – that ‘minor league pitching prospect’ was future Hall-Of-Famer John Smoltz. Could Luke French possibly be in line for a ‘charmed life’ as a major league starting pitcher?
Filed under: AL Central, Twins Baseball
