Post-Opening Day Notes

by Andersklasen on Mar 31, 2008 10:52 PM EDT

How sweet it is! Scorecard in hand, I diligently listened to John Gordon call this Opening Night win on the radio Monday night, and enjoyed every minute of it.

A nice victory for the Twins, and a great performance from nearly every player. Let's take a look at how some people did Opening Night...

Livan Hernandez
What a great showing from our ace, huh? He went a solid seven innings, and only allowed two runs on seven hits.

He had great location early on, struggled in the fifth inning, then re-gained his form to close out his night. He didn't walk anyone, and had one strikeout. The bummer is that we have wait five days until he pitches again.

Pat Neshek
Following up a great Spring Training, Neshek struck out two straight in his appearance in the eighth, but allowed a bloop double to Gary Matthews Jr. He followed that up by striking out the ever dangerous Vladimir Guerrero. What a showing. I shouldn't have to wait long to see some more of him!

Joe Nathan
Nathan averages 40 saves per season in the last four years, and showed us why he is so good tonight. He had the chance to show former teammate Torii Hunter his stuff, and struck him out swinging.

Nathan allowed one hit in the ninth, but ended the game by forcing a ground-out to short from Kendrick.

Carlos Gomez
And I thought that he wouldn't be effective at the lead-off role. Boy, was I wrong. Gomez led off the game with an extremely long double down the left field line, and later scored off Joe Mauer's single.

Gomez beat out a bunt-single in the third, and drew a walk in the fifth. After that walk, Gomez stole second and then scored on a Michael Cuddyer single. He had a total of two stolen bases on the night. Wow.

Brendan Harris
Gardenhire loves this kid, and now I think I have a little idea as to why. Harris had two hits in the game, one a gift double.

He did struggle in the eighth when he had the bases loaded for him with one out, and he struck out swinging.

We are now 1-0, and lead the Tigers by one in the AL Central. While there's nowhere to go but down, it feels pretty good to be on top of the world.

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Sounds good to me

I'd like to add in Young though. He had about as good of a Twins debut as a player could want without crushing any homers or anything.

by clutchhit20 on Mar 31, 2008 11:13 PM EDT 0 recs

Livan

unfortunately, I only caught the tail end of the game on mlb.tv. I would have liked to see Hernandez pitch. Only one K worries me. Did he throw a lot of pitches? He's going to have some bad nights and some good ones like this one, but as long as he can keep going deep into games he is doing all the Twins can ask of him.

http://noblingblings.blogspot.com/

by Aaron Fix on Apr 1, 2008 12:52 AM EDT 0 recs

Hernandez, Neshek, Nathan

Hernandez was good enough which is the very best we can hope for- honestly IMHO it is more than a bit unnerving to go from Rad or Jo as your opening day starting to an 86 mph max. Livan- but after one game I gotta give him credit and say he was good enough to earn the W last evening. Miller & Morgan worked the game for ESPN 2. I like them better than any other broadcast team working in any sport. In the 7th inning Miller a great comment regarding Livan and the speed with which he worked- he thought the Twins staff had him working faster than ever before & inferred it was a great idea from the Twins coaching staff & helped keep the Halos unbalaned or out of sync. The Neshek bloop double was a dome double if there ever was one, Delmon should of had it if he'd had more experience in the dome. The Neshek Figgins battle with one out in the 8th was excellent. Neshek & Nathan both looked terrific last night. It was great seeing Nathan do battle with Torii- the K zone pitch by pitch after Torii's AB was great. Did I mention what a pleasure it is to listen to Joe Morgan & Jon Miller call a ballgame. They don't get in the way of the game or OVERHYPE IT BABY they just watch the game with the viewer and share wise, interesting, and relevant comments. I know enjoying broadcasters is a matter of personal taste- but Miller's voice is so smooth, relaxing, & unobnoxious and Morgan is just bright & interesting.

by Swanee on Apr 1, 2008 4:55 AM EDT up 0 recs

Miller & Morgan

Miller is an exemplary radio announcer, and a natural play-by-play man. On the flip side, Morgan is an absolute travesty in the booth. I wasn't going to say anything, but using adjectives like "wise" and "bright" to describe Joe Morgan (as an announcer) compelled me to write. I don't want to belittle your enjoyment of the job they do by any means, but I just don't believe Morgan is very good at his job.

by Neil on Apr 1, 2008 10:18 AM EDT up 0 recs

+1

I felt the same way while reading it. They should just have Miller by himself.

by snolls on Apr 1, 2008 10:58 AM EDT up 0 recs

FJM

I can't stand Morgan any more than anyone else, but he did actually have an insightful comment about the common wisdom of establishing your fastballs early being a bad idea against the Braves (Chipper, Francoeur, et al do love them some fastballs).

I thought it was worth noting. Then again, one decent comment out of dozens if not hundreds of games I've heard him announce isn't a great track record. Heck, even LNP hit a home run once.

formerly known in these parts as adamb

by ravenfly on Apr 1, 2008 3:12 PM EDT up 0 recs

I have to comment about this too

Miller does a good job of putting up with Joe Morgan's idiocy, and almost makes the team listenable. But Joe Morgan cannot go five minutes without putting his foot in his mouth. He repeatedly and completely willingly, on television and online and in print media, reveals his complete ignorance of 95% of all baseball players not playing in New York or Boston. I remember watching a game against the Yankees last year during May (don't remember who their opponent was) and he actually made the prediction, right then and there, that A-Rod would have a good year. Simply amazing. He says things that would put less famous people in mental institutions, and he gets paid to say them to national TV audiences.

http://noblingblings.blogspot.com/

by Aaron Fix on Apr 1, 2008 11:47 AM EDT up 0 recs