Liriano Update: Sunday's Not As Great

I like the idea of promoting Liriano, but I don’t envision him blowing away AL batters this year.

And without seeing him pitch, it’s just a guess as to whether he deserves a promotion. I do know that the Twins see him, and they aren’t promoting him. And they would if they felt it would help them. (I’m not big on the conspiracy theories about and agents and service time.) I know big league teams try to win when they can because “when they can” is elusive.)

We know that the IL isn’t the big leagues, and it has been said that the IL this year isn’t even fine quality AAA ball, so that’s important to factor into this.

Based on their records, Scranton, Pawtucket and Louisville are the cream of the league. In his past 5 starts, the only one of them that he has faced is Scranton, and his line looks OK, but not great. Can’t see what his fielders did, can’t see if the extra-base hits were screamers or floaters that took interesting bounces, can see how many of the Ks were from swinging at shoulder-high fastballs.

I look at the teams that he has beaten and their records and I’m impressed considering he’s in his first full year back from surgery, but I’m not impressed enough to say he deserves a promotion. AAA players just swing at a lot of crap that big-leaguers don’t swing at, and who knows what the quality of the umpiring is down there?

More to think about than just a few 0s on the board. His lines are just the beginning, they’re are not proof that he belongs in Minnesota.

The only numbers I care about down there are strike outs, walks and HRs. In his last five starts, he has struck out more than a batter an inning and given up about a walk per nine while surrendering one homer over the entire span. That is still dominant. One start does not say much to dissuade me of the opinion that he’s ready.

The last time Liriano’s line looked truly bad was June 25th. I just watced the game archived at MiLB.com right now, expecting to see him basically suck, but, very simply, he pitched much better than his line. He wasn’t lights out, he wasn’t blow away, but he was much better than his line. He threw A TON of offspeed breaking pitches—enough to make me wonder if he’d been asked to work on them or if he knew he didn’t have his harder slider going or good movement on his fastball on the day.

Through the first three innings Louisville had a mess of weakly hit outs but scored two in the 2nd when Plouffe let a routine groundball go under his glove and Liriano - who was definitely frustrated at the error - left a breaking ball a shade up on the very next pitch to a scorching hot Adam Rosales (who’d homered twice the night before). It hit the top of the wall in left and bounced over for a Just Barely home run. 2 runs, 1 earned. Do you have to recover mentally from errorrs as an MLB pitcher? Of course. Does it make a difference to me that the home run came right after an amateur-hour defensive let down? Yes. That it came off of an absolutely dialed in hitter? Yes. That it barely got out? Yes.

Now for the 4 run 4th. Lead off looping soft line drive base dropped in front of Watkins in left. Next hitter: well hit line drive double down the left field line put men on 2nd and 3rd for Louisville. The next Louisville hitter popped an absolutely routine - I mean ABSOLUTELY routine - fall ball to Tommy Watkins in left who misjudged it and fell down trying to reverse himself, allowing it to drop for a “triple” and scoring two “earned” runs (runner on third could probably have tagged and scored assuming he runs fairly well). Liriano walked the next hitter and gave the umpire a VERY long look on ball 4 as he certainly appeared to hit his target on the outside corner (Jorgenson didn’t frame the pitch very well for some reason—may have been expecting the quick strike call). First and third. Next hitter, ground ball double play, the runner on third scores. All three runs are technically earned but the Watkins misplay was keystone kops stuff and only one should have scored/was truly “earned”. Two out (should be three) and nobody on and Liriano again left a slider a bit high to a right-hander who parked one in the left field seats. It wasn’t a tape measure job, but neither did it sneak out the way the first one did. Jerry Hairston Jr. hits a soft looping liner that drops in front of Watkins in left. Liriano got the next hitter to chase a 1-2 breaking ball down and away: he hit a weak roller off the end of the bat that looked like out 3 until it kicked off the 2nd base gab for what even the Louisville announcer called “a gift hit”. The Louisville announcers called it “one of those games”, “a crazy one” at this point. Finally, groundball to short to get out.. I mention the post home run thing just to point out the extra pitches in an already too-long inning he had to throw because of bizarre stuff.

In the fifth, Macri made another awful error—Buckneresque stuff on a roller between his legs. Liriano went to the stretch and got ahead 0-2. Hard hit ground ball to 2nd, Santos’s relay throw to first was low but Garrett Jones should’ve made the play. In any event Liraino got a 543 doubleplay on the next pitch. No scoring, but Liriano twice got groundballs he needed. He struck out the leadoff hitter in the 6th, then gave up a base hit and was pulled.

Sure, he was hit, but had Watkins made that routine play in left his line would have looked VERY different. And that’s the last time he was “rocked”. I’m gonna listen to today’s game and try to get an idea about the extra base hits.

A little more detail on Liriano’s performance against the Scranton-Wilkesbarre Yankees for anyone interested. I’ll mostly just give the quotes when those are descriptive. I include verbatim the Yankee play by play guy’s incredulity that Liriano is still in AAA, cuz that was fun. TONS of missed bats for Liriano.

First Inning
Leadoff hitter (RH): Ball low, Line drive at Plouffe, knocks it down, throw to 1st, one out.
Batter 2 (RH): ball; “strike at the knees, outside corner; “fastball yanked foul down the line at 3rd”; foul back out of play; “this one dumped down into the right field corner… standup double.. Gonzales going the opposite way”; the Yankee play by play guy didn’t sell it like it was particularly well hit.
Batter 3 (RH hitter) first pitch “down the line in right field, good carry, howie clark back at the track, he will make the catch”. Runner tags to third.
Batter 4 (RH) takes a strike at the knees; check swing he went around; ripped it foul down the 3rd base line; fastball outside; ball high and wide; changeup high; full count; strikes out swinging on a slider.

Second Inning
Hitter 1 (LH) Ben Broussard: foul tip strike one; “liriano has this one ripped down the 1st base line” for a double
Hitter 2 (RH): first pitch: “Dumps it out into right field, base hit”, runners at 1st and 3rd
Hitter 3 (LH): Strike; Ball (slider); fastball low; “swings through changeup”; “swings over top of a slider”, Strikeout
Hitter 4 (RH): Ball; swing and a miss; ball; takes a strike; pulls a foul; “swings and misses at a slider in the dirt.”
Hitter 5 (RH): Tap foul; ball; “swings and misses on a good hard slider”; fastball wide; “hot shot, fair ball, groundrule double” down the third base line.
Hitter 6 (RH): ball; foul; “big cut, fouled back”; “couldn’t hold off on a slider in on his feet” Strikeout

Third Inning
Batter 1 (RH) 2-0 pitch “a rocket down the line in left”, “bangs” off the fence, “out by a mile” trying for a double on a good play by Darnell McDonald.
Batter 2 (RH) called strike; foul “back out of play”; fastball wide; called strike 3 on a changeup inside corner
Batter 3 (RH) swing a miss; called strike at the knees on the outside corner; “a good changeup” swung on and missed, 3 out.

Fourth Inning
Batter 1 (LH) changeup called strike at the knees; Announcer notes Liriano “not wasting a lot of time out there”; fastball outside edge called strike two; ball low; Broussard “chases a slider out of the zone” strike 3. “I’m not exactly sure what the Minnesota Twins are waiting for” says the Yankees announcer.
Batter 2 (RH) ball, ball low, chopper to third, two out.
Batter 3 (LH) ball, ball high, “swings and misses at a 2-0 slider”, called strike, fastball low, “groundball, shoots it through the right side, base hit”.
Batter 4 (RH) chopped up the middle, everett to macri, 3 out.

Fifth Inning
Batter 1 (RH) ball, fastball low, ball low, strike outside corner, “dumps one to right field”, backs clark to the warning track, one out. Announcer didn’t get excited at all… sounds like it carried well but that’s about it.
Batter 2 (RH) “Drive into the right field corner”, double. Definitely well hit opposite field fliner.
Batter 3 (RH) ball, called strike at the knees, high fly ball to “shallow” left down the line.
Batter 4 (RH) ball low, “gaps one, right center field, it will hang long enough, howie clark makes the catch”

6th Inning
Batter 1 (RH) 1-1 count, then: fastball inside, “rifle shot yanked foul”, “swung on and missed, chased one out of the zone”
Quote “And again, not really sure what Minnesota is waiting on to get this guy back up to the big leagues”
Batter 2 Broussard (LH) Strike at the knees, HBP off his hand
Batter 3 (RH) fouled back into the seats, fastball wide, fastball called strike at the knees, “chased a pitch out of the zone - that’s the gooood Liriano slider”, strikeout
Batter 4 (LH) Slider misses away; Quote “Scary to think that Liriano is still going to improve… throw harder… get more bite”; pulled foul ball; Quote “by about this time next year - whoo—it is going to be scary to be a hitter in the American League, that is provided the Twins decided to call him and bring him up”; called strike slider outside corner; “JUUUST off the outside corner, 92 mph with the fastball”; fastball high; check swing, ball four high.
Batter 5 (RH) Swing and a miss; “Green hammers one, centerfield, Pridie back, still going back, that one GONE… Green to dead center”. Nick Green hits homerun number 8. “Nick Green slammed one out into centerfield, I thought that one would get over the head of Pridie… but that one just kept carrying and carrying and got right over the mark at 402.” Announcer definitely seemed surprised it ended up getting out as he called it live.
Batter 6 (RH) 1-2 pitch, ball low, ball, groundball to everett, 3 out.

There you go. “Sounded” like he had pretty good stuff, all things. Quote when Barrett started the 7th. “If nothing else, the good news is Mr. Liriano has called it an evening.”