by SonDog
Can you imagine a San Francisco starting rotation that includes Noah Lowry, Matt Can, Brad Hennessey AND Francisco Liriano? It could have happened. Why Liriano was a "throw in" in the abomination that was the A.J. Peirzynski trade, we may never know. However, according to Peter Gammons's blog today on ESPN.com, Liriano may soon become the best lefty in baseball:
"Which has given Francisco Liriano, who has 32 strikeouts in 22 1/3 innings, a shot at the rotation. Gardenhire has thus far been hesitant to rush Liriano -- first, because his five established starters deserved every opportunity to find themselves; and second, because while Liriano throws 97-98 mph with a 91 mph slider and 82 mph change, he has yet to demonstrate consistent command of the fastball. He's had some outings where he's been at 60 pitches in his third inning. The slider he can throw anytime, anywhere for strikes.
Twice on Saturday night, Liriano threw 3-1 sliders for strikes in blowing away the White Sox. Then, when he threw a fastball for a strike, Jim Thome looked at the Minnesota dugout and mouthed, "Wow."
"That is as good a stuff from a left-hander as I've ever faced," Thome said. "The only comparable stuff I can think of is Randy [Johnson] when he was young. That kid is unbelievable."
I'm looking forward to watching Liriano's next start. I watched him pitch a couple of times last year and was pretty amazed at his stuff. On a side note, Boof Bonser, the third pitcher included in the Pierzynski trade (Joe Nathan, Bonser and Liriano) has an ERA of 2.01 with a WHIP of 1.07 for AAA Rochester.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
The Next Big Thing
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4 comments:
Worst move Sabean has ever made.
goddammit!! It's like when you're playing a video game and you try to see how bad you can fuck yourself up and still try to win.
Even if just Boof Bonser becomes an average pitcher for the Twins, this is a bad trade... That's not even counting the shut-down closer and future ace (based on predictions) included in the deal. Not to sound like Bill Walton, but if Liriano becomes the ace that everybody is predicting, this may go down as one of the worst moves in the history of the game.
Even if Francisco Liriano craps himself during the first inning of the first start and never pitches again, Joe Nathan gets eaten by a moose, and Boof Bonser changes his name to Joe Brown, it was a bad trade.
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