FanPost

Twins playoff rotation

While making the far to long daily drive from school to work today I found myself thinking about what the twins playoff rotation will consist of this year. Barring a unforeseen season ending injury its easy to assume we are looking at 5 candidates for 4 spots Liriano, Pavano, Baker are pretty well guaranteed to be in there then comes the battle between Slowey who has had many struggles this year and some injury problems vs Duensing who has pitched very well all year in diffrent roles. Though Duensing was the last man in replacing Blackburn I have to assume the nod goes to him over Slowey he has been our best starter for the last month or so and was our best reliever.

The more intriguing question is what order do we send them out in. Is your game 1 starter "ace" Liriano or Pavano and is your number 3 man Baker or Duensing.

Liriano vs Pavano is a battle of opposites, on the one hand Liriano has the more dominate ace like stuff if hes on, which is at least a bit questionable start to start, but he is going to get a lot of strike outs and rack up a high pitch count knocking him out earlier in the game. Then theres Pavano who has been an absolute workhorse innings eater and proven himself almost a guaranteed thing for a quality start+ but lacks the absolute dominate pitches to fully lock a game down. Which one do you want starting game 1 vs CC Sabathia or David Price personally I think it depends on the team we draw. Price is basically a harder throwing Liriano who wastes way more pitches and normally dosent go past 6 I would match Liriano against him and bet on him being able to dominate the game for a few innings longer. However Sabathia is basically a harder throwing more dominate Pavano innings eater ide match Pavano up against him and see who can win the war. Also to be taken into account somewhat is Lirianos mental questions they haven't reared their ugly head this year yet but game 1 in Yankee stadium might do that but despite his obviously terrible years in New York Pavano has pitched there before.

Baker vs Duensing is less of a question of what will happen I don't see the management hurting their beginning of the year de facto "ace" feelings by slotting the new add to the rotation over him. I personally think Duensing should start game 3 he has been better than Baker this year and maybe its just me being prejudiced on past performances but every time I watch Baker pitch I cringe waiting for the meltdown inning out of no where.

Our rotation has the ability to contend with any of these teams if they can all manage to get going at the same time. That feat has been a struggle this year its seems we have only really had 2 or 3 pistons firing at once this year and for playoff success that is gonna have to change.