Well, Liriano -- who's pitching in the Bronx tonight -- hasn't given the Twins one good month yet. Not with that 5.75 ERA. As you might remember -- perhaps because I hammered on the subject every time Livan Hernandez got knocked around last summer while the Twins were trying to win a division title -- Liriano, after a slow start, dominated Triple-A hitters in start after start after start. The Twins finally did chuck Hernandez from the rotation in early August, and Liriano didn't disappoint; in his first eight starts, he went 5-0 with a 1.57 ERA, with 44 strikeouts and 12 walks in 52 innings.
That old deadly slider wasn't quite the game, but it was almost as if he'd never left.
Liriano didn't pitch as well in his last three starts, though. His last start, against the Royals in Game No. 160, helped cost the Twins that division title. And while Liriano's numbers this season -- aside from the lousy ERA -- don't look all that different from last season's numbers, that's true only when we include his first three starts (in April, before he found himself in the minors) and his last three. To this point, anyway, Liriano has looked absolutely nothing like the pitcher who took the American League by storm for three months in 2006.
Maybe this is all just a necessary step in the healing process. For the Twins' sake, though, Liriano had better move to the next step fairly soon.
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ABOUT THIS BLOG
Rob Neyer
Neyer is a senior writer at ESPN.com. He began his career with legendary baseball author (and now Red Sox executive) Bill James, then joined Stats Inc. and wrote about MLB, the NFL and the NBA. Neyer joined ESPN.com in 1996, and it's believed that he's written more words for the site than anybody.
Neyer moved to Kansas City in 1976, just in time for the Royals' first division title, and fell in love almost immediately. He attended the University of Kansas the same four years as Danny Manning, and is now happy to wait another 20 years for the Jayhawks' next championship.