Liriano is annoyed

Full disclosure…in 2006, I fully expected this to be the Twins year. Cy Young winner Johan Santana would be in a contract year, the bats of Justin Morneau, Joe Mauer, and Michael Cuddyer would still be going strong, and a solid group of young pitchers like Scott Baker, Glen Perkins, Boof Bonser, and Kevin Slowey would be beginning successful MLB careers. Well, Morneau and Mauer have definitely lived up to their end of the bargain, and Baker, Perkins, and Slowey seem to be on the right track to success. However, Santana is no longer a Twin (he’s with the Mets, where for the first time in years, he didn’t get to the 5th without being pulled for a non-rain reason last night. However, the real reason the Twins looked to be on the upswing was another young lefty. Kid by the name of Francisco Liriano. In the short time he spent with the Twins in 2006, he put up these numbers:

121 IP, 144 K, 89 H, 32 BB, 2.16 ERA, 1.00 WHIP

It should be noted that his season ended with him needing Tommy John surgery, and the prognosis of him being back in 2008. When he started this season, he struggled, including a pretty terrible start at Oakland where he didn’t get out of the first inning. However, since then, he has been dominant at AAA Rochester, going 7-0 with a 2.73 ERA since his return to the minors. With the craptacular Livan Hernandez still pitching, many Twins fans (myself included) are wondering why Liriano hasn’t gotten called back up.  So is Liriano and his agent. Clearly, it’s a difficult situation. Liriano feels the Twins don’t want him to come back up and make him arbitration eligible (where he probably would expect to get a slight raise, if only for his contributions in ’06). However, He Shall be Livan will be owed $5 million, and frankly his trade value is so low nobody will take him. Some clubs could afford a hit like that, but the Twins aren’t one of them, so expect Livan to be pitching more than the Cisco Kid down the stretch.

This will, by the way, probably cost the Twins the AL Central, but oh, well, I’m surprised they’re doing this well.