The Twins begin the second series on their monster road trip tonight. The Twins arrived in Seattle with an improved bullpen and are looking to snap their two game Anaheim slide. The game starts at 9:10 pm for those of you in Twins Territory or 10:10 pm for the unfortunate souls who live on the east coast. But on second thought, the game starts at 3:10 am in Dublin, so maybe EST folk shouldn’t complain.

Tonight’s Probable Pitchers:

The Mariners will send Miguel Batista (xFIP: 5.17; tRA+ 62) to the mound. Batista has struggled this year against just about everyone. After tossing at least 6 innings in 23 of 32 starts in 2007, Batista has only thrown 6 innings in 5 of 19 starts this year. (And only 2 times in his last 13.) Adding to his woes, during the first inning of his last 13 starts Batista has allowed 16 hits and 16 runs. This season opponents are hitting .305 in the first inning against Batista.

Francisco Liriano (xFIP: 5.18; tRA+ 113) will toe the rubber for the Twins. While Liriano’s season ERA stands at 4.24, since returning to the majors he has gone 4-0 with a 1.14 ERA. During that same span, Liriano has held opponents to a .184 batting average with 20 strikeouts and just one home run. Compare those stats with Liriano’s early season ERA of 11.32, which resulted in an 0-3 record. Pat Neshek has already taken note: the road to recovery is a long, hard path.

(Note: Most people at the WGOM seem to prefer the xFIP stat to evaluate pitchers, but in this case tRA+ seems to be the more accurate measure. If you are interested in learning more about tRA+ check out this article where the basic methodology behind the tRA statistic is explained. For comparison purposes, Cliff Lee sports a tRA+ of 177, and Livan Hernandez’s stands at 93.)

The Mariners are 48-82 this season and have lost 12 of their last 15 games. Even though the Mariners are struggling, Raul Ibanez has continued his second half tear recording 2 or more hits in 10 of his last 20 games resulting in a .420 average. I’m sure every Twins fan remembers the series Ibanez had against the Twins the first week in August; I’m also sure that the Twins don’t want to see him repeat that performance this time around. In order to win this series the Twins will have to find some way to cool off Ibanez.

The Twins’ season record stands at 74-56 and they have won 10 of their last 15 games. Mauer, Punto, and Morneau come into this game hitting the ball well, but their efforts have not translated to wins the last two days. Gaffes in the field by both Busher and Gomez cost the Twins too many runs on Saturday and Sunday, which helped to erase great efforts by both Nick Blackburn and Kevin Slowey. If they want to win this series the Twins cannot afford to play sloppy defensive baseball, against a Mariners team looking to spoil someones playoff hopes.

Since, tonight’s game starts later than usual in the central and eastern time zones, you’ll probably want some pregame reading materials to pass the time. Take a look at this post over at U.S.S. Mariner: Ahhh, Minnesota. My favorite comment might be #18, but gas-mask versus bag-over-head debate is also entertaining.

Since this is the first game of this series, lets start off the comments with a couple of questions:

1. The Twins have now tried to solve their bullpen woes with the requisition of Every-Day Eddie: Will this trade be enough to fix the Twins’ bullpen issues? Does Eddie automatically take over the eighth inning role, or do you have a better role to recommend?
2. Ignoring pitchers and the M&M boys, who must step up to help the Twins win this series?
3. Bonus pre-game question: Was designating Mike Lamb for assignment the right roster move to make room for Eddie?

According to ESPN, Fransisco Liriano picked up his visa today, February 25th 2008. Liriano finally getting to Spring Training in Ft. Myers is very good for the Twins, because as far as I know, he is the only player yet to report. The Twins will now be able to evaluate all of their pitchers, and decide who will be in the rotation on opening day. Liriano should arrive at camp sometime on Tuesday.

Interestingly, ESPN decided to dub Liriano the Twins’ Staff Ace. Clearly, this would be true if he had never been injured, missed a year, and had continued to pitch like he did for most of his rookie year. But he was injured, and as of now Liriano might start the season at the Twins AAA Rochester club or even in the bullpen. To call Liriano the Twins’ “Ace” seems to be jumping the gun. Hopefully, when he gets to Spring Training, he’ll show no signs of ever being injured or missing time. WHEN that happens then he should be called the “Ace”.

You can find the ESPN Article: Here.