Post by John on Jun 22, 2006 7:32:24 GMT -4
Rookie Liriano may blow away even the Rocket
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
HOUSTON -- For now, he's the other news. As in, "And in other news ..."
By the time Thursday's game finishes, however, don't be surprised if the kid opposing Roger Clemens walks with his share of the national spotlight.
"Roger Clemens is going to get a lot of national attention," Minnesota center fielder Torii Hunter was saying at his locker Wednesday afternoon. "Francisco Liriano with the Twins, nobody really knows him.
"People still don't know Johan Santana. They'll ask me, 'Johan who?' And I'll say, 'You don't know Johan? He's a Cy Young winner!
"They're going to focus on Liriano and they're going to see something they like."
Yes, with another Clemens comeback, they've placed a new bulb in the spotlight. The television trucks are pulling in. Media members are streaming in from the airport as if it was the Million Man March.
Wouldn't it be funny if everyone was covering the wrong story?
The stage is set, but what is being billed around these parts as the Return of the Rocket well could wind up as a very special coming out party for Francisco Casillas Liriano.
Hunter thinks you're going to like what you see.
He's based that on some very solid research.
He's already had in-game conversations this season with, among others, Pittsburgh's Sean Casey and the Los Angeles Angels' Garret Anderson.
"Different guys have asked, 'Where the hell did you find this guy?'" Hunter says. "They're trying to figure out if he's real. Mostly left-handers, but I've had some right-handers come up, too."
Where the Twins "found" him is in what is quickly becoming one of the most lopsided trades in baseball history. They acquired Liriano, two-time All-Star closer Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser -- who also currently is in Minnesota's rotation -- from San Francisco for catcher A.J. Pierzynski in November, 2004.
"There's just something about him that's really sick," Hunter says. "I know the league doesn't know him yet, and he'll have to go around a couple of times and then he'll have to make some adjustments.
"But with the stuff he has, not too many people are going to figure him out."
Just 22, Liriano already has what may be the best slider in baseball.
"God don't hit it if he throws it right," a dazzled long-time American League scout says.
What sets it apart from other sliders is how hard he throws it -- 91, 92 mph, an unheard of velocity for that pitch.
"It just disappears," the scout says. "You're going back to Ron Guidry and Steve Carlton and those guys. Even Randy Johnson. It's just a hell of a pitch."
It's also a pitch that, stunningly, given the buzz it's creating, Liriano only learned a year ago. Bobby Cuellar, now Pittsburgh's bullpen coach and the former pitching coach at Triple-A Rochester, taught it to him. What Cuellar did essentially was take Liriano's curveball, tweak the grip and arm motion and turn it into a slider.
Liriano, who also throws a sizzling fastball in the mid-90s and a knee-buckling changeup that ranges from the high 70s to the low 80s, willingly junked the curve for good.
"My curve was too slow," Liriano says. "It always got hit."
So Cuellar and Liriano went to work last July, just after the All-Star break, and now it's become a pitch that some predict could eventually carry the lefty to Cy Young territory.
Casey and Anderson aren't the only opponents who have been outspoken in their praise. Upon facing Liriano during one of the lefty's early season relief appearances, Jim Thome of the Chicago White Sox watched a slider crackle past, backed out of the batter's box, looked over at the Twins dugout and mouthed one word.
Wow!
Not long after, Baltimore's Miguel Tejada -- a former MVP -- did the same thing.
"We just kind of laughed," says Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson. "That's a pretty good compliment."
With a 2.16 ERA, Liriano currently boasts the best mark of any AL rookie starter. With six wins, he ranks second to Detroit's Justin Verlander, who has eight.
Because he pitched for the Dominican Republic this spring in the World Baseball Classic and didn't get in as many innings as the Twins hoped during camp, he started the season in the Minnesota bullpen.
"We could have stuck him in the rotation," manager Ron Gardenhire says. "We thought we had a solid rotation. But that didn't pan out. We were always going to put him in the rotation, we were just going to go slow early."
When the Twins rotation uncharacteristically started so poorly -- at one point in early May, the rotation ranked last in the AL in ERA -- and when the club thought Liriano had gotten in enough work, the Twins moved him out of the bullpen and into the rotation on May 19 in Milwaukee.
The rest, as they say, is history. Or, at least, in the process of becoming history. In six starts so far this season, Liriano is 5-1 with a 1.50 ERA.
"I thought Pittsburgh had good passes at him," Hunter says of Liriano's last start, Friday night in PNC Park. "But after he settled down, he struck out 11."
His teammates already have dubbed him with a kingly nickname.
As Liriano walked into the dugout before batting practice Wednesday, first baseman Justin Morneau greeted him the way nearly everyone else in the clubhouse does -- "What's up, Franchise?"
Interestingly, he commands his slider and changeup better than his fastball -- which speaks to his high ceiling, because command of that fastball will come as he matures.
Tellingly, he's impressed the Twins with his work ethic. When it comes time for Liriano's between-starts side work in the bullpen, a typical conversation between him and Anderson will go something like this:
Anderson: What do you want to do tomorrow?
Liriano: I want to command my fastball.
When he does....
"You'd like to say it's just another ballgame, and that's what it is, but it's a little different here in Houston and, actually, probably the rest of the United States, for whoever likes baseball," Gardenhire says. "I think he's to the point where he'll handle himself just fine.
"I don't think he'll put any more pressure on himself. He has great stuff, and he's going to go out there and attack the hitters, just like he always would."
By Scott Miller
CBS SportsLine.com Senior Writer
HOUSTON -- For now, he's the other news. As in, "And in other news ..."
By the time Thursday's game finishes, however, don't be surprised if the kid opposing Roger Clemens walks with his share of the national spotlight.
"Roger Clemens is going to get a lot of national attention," Minnesota center fielder Torii Hunter was saying at his locker Wednesday afternoon. "Francisco Liriano with the Twins, nobody really knows him.
"People still don't know Johan Santana. They'll ask me, 'Johan who?' And I'll say, 'You don't know Johan? He's a Cy Young winner!
"They're going to focus on Liriano and they're going to see something they like."
Yes, with another Clemens comeback, they've placed a new bulb in the spotlight. The television trucks are pulling in. Media members are streaming in from the airport as if it was the Million Man March.
Wouldn't it be funny if everyone was covering the wrong story?
The stage is set, but what is being billed around these parts as the Return of the Rocket well could wind up as a very special coming out party for Francisco Casillas Liriano.
Hunter thinks you're going to like what you see.
He's based that on some very solid research.
He's already had in-game conversations this season with, among others, Pittsburgh's Sean Casey and the Los Angeles Angels' Garret Anderson.
"Different guys have asked, 'Where the hell did you find this guy?'" Hunter says. "They're trying to figure out if he's real. Mostly left-handers, but I've had some right-handers come up, too."
Where the Twins "found" him is in what is quickly becoming one of the most lopsided trades in baseball history. They acquired Liriano, two-time All-Star closer Joe Nathan and Boof Bonser -- who also currently is in Minnesota's rotation -- from San Francisco for catcher A.J. Pierzynski in November, 2004.
"There's just something about him that's really sick," Hunter says. "I know the league doesn't know him yet, and he'll have to go around a couple of times and then he'll have to make some adjustments.
"But with the stuff he has, not too many people are going to figure him out."
Just 22, Liriano already has what may be the best slider in baseball.
"God don't hit it if he throws it right," a dazzled long-time American League scout says.
What sets it apart from other sliders is how hard he throws it -- 91, 92 mph, an unheard of velocity for that pitch.
"It just disappears," the scout says. "You're going back to Ron Guidry and Steve Carlton and those guys. Even Randy Johnson. It's just a hell of a pitch."
It's also a pitch that, stunningly, given the buzz it's creating, Liriano only learned a year ago. Bobby Cuellar, now Pittsburgh's bullpen coach and the former pitching coach at Triple-A Rochester, taught it to him. What Cuellar did essentially was take Liriano's curveball, tweak the grip and arm motion and turn it into a slider.
Liriano, who also throws a sizzling fastball in the mid-90s and a knee-buckling changeup that ranges from the high 70s to the low 80s, willingly junked the curve for good.
"My curve was too slow," Liriano says. "It always got hit."
So Cuellar and Liriano went to work last July, just after the All-Star break, and now it's become a pitch that some predict could eventually carry the lefty to Cy Young territory.
Casey and Anderson aren't the only opponents who have been outspoken in their praise. Upon facing Liriano during one of the lefty's early season relief appearances, Jim Thome of the Chicago White Sox watched a slider crackle past, backed out of the batter's box, looked over at the Twins dugout and mouthed one word.
Wow!
Not long after, Baltimore's Miguel Tejada -- a former MVP -- did the same thing.
"We just kind of laughed," says Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson. "That's a pretty good compliment."
With a 2.16 ERA, Liriano currently boasts the best mark of any AL rookie starter. With six wins, he ranks second to Detroit's Justin Verlander, who has eight.
Because he pitched for the Dominican Republic this spring in the World Baseball Classic and didn't get in as many innings as the Twins hoped during camp, he started the season in the Minnesota bullpen.
"We could have stuck him in the rotation," manager Ron Gardenhire says. "We thought we had a solid rotation. But that didn't pan out. We were always going to put him in the rotation, we were just going to go slow early."
When the Twins rotation uncharacteristically started so poorly -- at one point in early May, the rotation ranked last in the AL in ERA -- and when the club thought Liriano had gotten in enough work, the Twins moved him out of the bullpen and into the rotation on May 19 in Milwaukee.
The rest, as they say, is history. Or, at least, in the process of becoming history. In six starts so far this season, Liriano is 5-1 with a 1.50 ERA.
"I thought Pittsburgh had good passes at him," Hunter says of Liriano's last start, Friday night in PNC Park. "But after he settled down, he struck out 11."
His teammates already have dubbed him with a kingly nickname.
As Liriano walked into the dugout before batting practice Wednesday, first baseman Justin Morneau greeted him the way nearly everyone else in the clubhouse does -- "What's up, Franchise?"
Interestingly, he commands his slider and changeup better than his fastball -- which speaks to his high ceiling, because command of that fastball will come as he matures.
Tellingly, he's impressed the Twins with his work ethic. When it comes time for Liriano's between-starts side work in the bullpen, a typical conversation between him and Anderson will go something like this:
Anderson: What do you want to do tomorrow?
Liriano: I want to command my fastball.
When he does....
"You'd like to say it's just another ballgame, and that's what it is, but it's a little different here in Houston and, actually, probably the rest of the United States, for whoever likes baseball," Gardenhire says. "I think he's to the point where he'll handle himself just fine.
"I don't think he'll put any more pressure on himself. He has great stuff, and he's going to go out there and attack the hitters, just like he always would."