Writing "report card" type sports columns is the laziest thing in the world for journalists, especially in early parts of a season. The first thirty days in a seven-month year of baseball allows prognosticators to analyze and predict just about anything they want with no repercussions. If you get a prediction wrong in May, no one remembers by October. If you somehow go Nastrodomas on the readers' asses and get a prediction correct, you can brag about it for an entire year. So here we go. Please don't remind me of this column in August, unless I was right.
Pitching: Minnesota should have one of the top three pitching rotations in the AL. Santana continues to pitch like the Cy Young winner he is. Radke, Mays, and Silva have gone out there and thrown the ball pretty well. Loshe sucks, but the bullpen, when not injured or suspended, is next to lights out. We're losing a lot of one run games and that doesn't rest on the pitching's shoulders. Grade B+.
Hitting: In the first thirty days season, Minnesota's hitters have frustrated me to no end. What kills me is that these kids can knock the ball around all day long, just never on the same day, in the same inning. They're allowing opposing starting pitchers to stay in the game too long by continually leaving multiple base runners in scoring position. Stewart, Jones, Mauer, Hunter, Ford and Morneau have to be worth more than four runs a game. Manager Ron Gardenhire should and most likely will tinker with the order until some RBI consistency shows itself. Grade C+.
Fielding: It's not as good as it was in the past couple of seasons. And it's an inexperienced infield. I still think losing Koski and Guzman on the left side will cost the Twinkies some runs in bigger games. Moving Mauer to third base would be more of an experiment than an improvement right now. Not neccesarily a glaring weakness, but the absence of the vacuum like fielding of Twins' teams of the past could cost us a close division race. Grade B-.
Overall: The fight with the White Sox is officially on. Chicago may not have their usual Mariah Carrie like mental breakdown after the all star break. The first thirty days of the young season has shown the Twins just a wee bit weaker than last year and the Sox a little more confident. I do think Minnesota will get hot as the summer gets hotter and the White Sox will cool off as the autumn gets cooler. In a close one, Chicago wins the AL Central. But don't fret, the Twins will sneak into October as a wild card winner. First 30 Day Grade: A very low B.
