Well, the Twins season is over. It was a nice run guys, but I think that your biggest victory was catching the Tigers and actually making it to the playoffs. That was truly amazing, a come back for the ages! I don’t think anyone (including me) really thought that you could beat the Yankees, but like I said, making the playoffs was an amazing accomplishment. A round one loss sucks, but you did that much better than the Tigers, Rays, Rangers, Mariners and White Sox, right? The Twins had some major bright spots at the plate, though. The fact that they made it (I keep on repeating this for some reason) without their perennial MVP candidate Justin Morneau is really astounding.
They got big contributions down the stretch from many names that you wouldn’t expect and four guys had playoff batting averages over .400 against the mighty Yankees-great job to Nick Punto, Michael Cuddyer,
Joe Mauer and Denard Span!
Unfortunately their hitting attack wasn’t very balanced and even with those 4 hitting over .400, they had four guys who batted below .200-Jose Morales, Jason Kubel, Orlando Cabrera and my guy Delmon Young. D-Young had a rough series-he did hit a double in the 7th inning of todays game, but that was his only hit of the series-he was 1-12 in the three games. It was his first chance at the postseason and hopefully more opportunities will arise for D-Young and the Twinkies. Delmon just turned 24 years old in September and although it seems like he has been around forever, this is just his 4th season in the big leagues. The pressure has been heavy on him, being the First Pick in the 2003 draft out of high school brings many expectations. Being traded for Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett-both of whom have been very good for Tampa Bay also brings high expectations. He has been in the Major Leagues since he was only 20-years-old and he is a career .290 hitter. Pretty impressive if you ask me. Still, the expectations... Donruss made him a Diamond King as a teenager-that is high praise (and a lot to live up to)for someone right out of high school...
This year he got hot at the right time and his 4 home runs the last three weeks of the season really helped push the Twins into the postseason. On the year he batted .284 with 12 homers and 60 RBI in somewhat limited play-108 games. I think that the Rays got an extremely great deal in trade for Delmon (an All Star shortstop and solid starter) but at his young age, low salary (barely over a million) this guy has HUGE upside. He is younger than many over hyped prospects in AA or AAA and he has 4 big league seasons under his belt. Even post trade, I still continue to try and chase his cards. I am still waiting to find a Young autograph or relic card, but the DY collection is up over 40 cards so far. If you have D-Young cards to trade, or any Rays cards-get in touch with the Troll. bacontowne at yahooo dot com. In honor of Delmon Young’s 12 regular season homers, one the evening that the Twins were knocked out of the postseason, here is my Delmon Young 12 card salute. So sorry Twins, there's always next year... Oh and yes, these will all be Rays cards, but there will be no commentary…Enjoy.
Go Rays and Twins next year! Go Angels! Go Dodgers! Wait, did I really say "Go Dodgers"? My goodness... Troll out.
That Span is pretty sweet. Hopefully he's healthy and full-time in the lineup next year.
ReplyDeleteAnd Delmon, he's the man! He's got Jeff Francoeur disease (eg never saw a first pitch he wouldn't swing at) but I'm with you: the upside is HUGE.