TheGoldSeat

The biggest question mark coming into this season was surrounding their ability to patch together a workable starting pitching rotation. All other pieces to the team seamed to be in tact. The rotation however was the one thing that almost every baseball “expert” predicted would be our downfall.

When spring training started one thing was a given. Johan Santana would be our opening day pitcher. The rest of the team however was nothing more than a roll of the dice. Names like Silva, Bonser, Ortiz, Ponson and Garza to name a few were thrown around like ragdolls. Everyone had their opinion as to who should be #2-#5. While today’s rotation is certainly different than I expected (and to be honest hoped for), we do know one thing after the first three games this season. Our first three starters are set!

Monday night Johan had a so-so night and still was able to pull out the win. On Tuesday, Boof looked unhittable for most of the night. The only mistake he made was to Tejada and that ball landed in the left field bleachers. Last night, Ortiz, one of our newest Twins took the mound.

The word around baseball circles was that Ortiz had lost his ability to be a productive piture. He was suffering from something that I like to call “Bradke Disease”. He would eat up bunches of innings but would always suffer from giving up the “big inning”. He had problems keeping the ball in the park. Brad Radke used to give up the first inning blast. For Ortiz, he wasn’t picky on which inning this happened.

Last night Ortiz showed me (and the rest of Minnesota) something. He showed us that he can still be a very good pitcher at this level. He reminded me of the guy who beat us during the ALCS. He reminded me of “pedro-lite” as many people used to call him (in reference to being a smaller almost mini-me version of Pedro Martinez). While early in the season, his performance (along with Santana and Boof) made me believe that we can make some waves in this division and in the American League.

The reason that I think that we’ll prove the so-called “experts” wrong is because what they didn’t realize is that our offensive production is already in mid-season form. Although we took an early exit from the post season last year, we were one of the more productive teams in baseball for the greater part of 3 months last year. The team took some time last year to gel and we saw the outcome. This year, the team has gelled and we’re already scoring runs in bunches. The Piranhas are once again reaking havok on the basepaths. The M&M boys are doing what they are supposed to… get on base and occassionally hit the ball out of the ball park. Rondell White is hitting the ball hard (considering that we got absolutely nothing from him during the first half of last season….i’ll take what I can get!).

Couple all of these factors with our new found pitching staff and I think that we might have something to look forward to this October. While we’re only three games into the season, and still have Ponson and Silva to go, I think that having solidified the first three starters will go along way in making this season one to remember.