Dropping two in a row to the Tigers? It’s becoming obvious that the Tigers won’t continue to struggle much longer. Unless their pitching sucks all year.

But, I’d hate to think that it was two games dropped by the Twins in late innings that gave the Tigers their jump start on the year. If the Tigers go on a roll now, it’s too bad that the Twins helped to get that ball rolling.

At least the Twins offense made a nice showing. It’s good to see Morneau sitting with 4 home runs on the season already.

Being a Twins fan can be tough.

I watched Johan Santana and Torii Hunter (and to a lesser degree, Carlos Silva) walk from the Twins this year. You may or may not be big fan of any of those players, but that was a meaty part of the Twins right there.

Even Carlos Silva, the third, lesser regarded player mentioned, was a very important part of the Twins pitching staff last year. Check out these stats. This shows that Silva covered a huge portion of the total pitching time of the Twins. And then, of course, it also completely stands out how important Santana was to the Twins pitching staff. That guy was never on downtime. And 2007 was one of Johan Santana’s down years.

Here’s the Twins 2007 Pitching Stats, from Baseball-Reference.com:

And now I have managed to wander into paragraph #4 before actually talking about the player in the headline.

Carlos Gomez is the guy that is propped up as the return savior of the disappearance of all these guys.

He’s the only guy in the trade that is on the Twins MLB club roster right now.

He’s playing hard, showing great promise, and making a good presence. This alone is helping the Twins convince the rest of the world that trading Santana might not have been that bad of an idea.

Yeah.

If Gomez is running the bases, he’s usually got dirt on his Jersey. That has to be a good sign. He’s also filling Torii Hunter’s shoes out in center field. It’s not an easy slot to fill.

And, not to mention, Gomez is wearing Brad Radke’s number.

When Brad Radke retired in December 2006, the Twins didn’t reassign his jersey No. 22. But new Twins outfielder Carlos Gomez will wear it this season.

If Gomez pans out and keeps up his exciting reputation, he’ll solidify the Twins hustle approach and be the payoff for losing all of Hunter, Santana and Silva.

TEAM ------------

W --

L --

% ------

GB ---

Chicago

6

4

.600

-

Kansas City

6

5

.545

0.5

Minnesota

6

5

.545

0.5

Cleveland

4

7

.364

2.5

Detroit

2

9

.182

4.5

It’s funny to see Detroit so low in the standings, I thought they’d be better at this point in the year. They almost got no-hit today.

I can’t necessarily say that I was completely ecstatic about the Minnesota Twins season debut. I miss Johan Santana throwing out the opening day pitch. I miss Hunter out in center field. But, at the same time, it’s hard not to be excited about this Twins team.

This first game sealed the deal for me.

I admit, if I had been at spring training watching games and watching the Twins do their spring training things, my opinion may be different. This is a pretty exciting team.

These guys are gonna score some runs. There is a certain youthful enthusiasm that breaks through to me. These guys want to play hard and these guys want to win. These types of situations break the expectations mold. The Twins are gonna be good this year. They gotta be.

They are gonna run the bases hard. They are gonna take advantage of second chances when the other team blows an easy out. They are gonna play excited, they are gonna play hard.

They will win games. They will also probably lose some spectacular games. They will grow and they will learn. This Twins team is built to wreak havoc on other un-suspecting teams. And I can’t wait to see them do so. It’s different than I am used to seeing, as far as the Twins are concerned. But they will be fun to watch. This is gonna be one hell of a team in a couple years. It’ll be fun to watch them this year.

It was fun to watch Joe Nathan make very quick work of Toriiiiiiii Hunter. It was fun to watch Gomez put on a show that probably made Toriiiiiiiii Hunter a little bit excited and jealous. Yeah. It’s gonna be a fun Twins baseball season.