Posts tagged LivanHernandez at FanHouse

With the Minnesota Twins needing to make room for Francisco Liriano in their starting rotation as they try to make a run at another division title, it meant that somebody would have to go. That somebody was Livan Hernandez who the Twins had signed in the off-season to be the leader of a young pitching staff.

Well, all Livan Hernandez led the Twins pitching staff in was hits allowed, runs against, and most fans cursing his name. Still, as I said when the move was first announced, the odds were that Livan would only be out of a job for a few days and it turns out I was right (the odds of which were 3000/1). Livan is the newest member of the Colorado Rockies.

Livan Hernandez was claimed off waivers by the Colorado Rockies from the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday.

"We've been struggling with our rotation this year," Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd said. "He's a great addition."

Dan O'Dowd has an odd definition of great, seeing as how Hernandez is 10-8 with a 5.48 ERA on the season, and has allowed five or more runs in nine of his twenty-three starts. Of course with the way the Rockies starting pitching has performed at times this year, I suppose Livan can be an improvement. Maybe a return to the National League where he spent his entire career before joining the Twins this season will be what Hernandez needs.

There are a lot of people who felt the Twins should have made a move before yesterday's deadline, myself being one of them, but instead the Twins decided to stand pat with what they have. It's a move that may hurt them now that they've lost second baseman and team spark plug Alexi Casilla could miss the rest of the season.

Still, sometimes it's not the trades that you make as much as it is the players you get back from the disabled list. Of course, Francisco Liriano has been off the disabled list for a while and blowing hitters away in Triple-A, but the team has just now decided to call him up. Though that does mean they have to make room for him, and that's why the team designated both Livan Hernandez and Craig Monroe for assignment.

Hernandez is 10-8 with a 5.48 ERA in 23 starts and has allowed 199 hits in 139 2/3 innings. He pitched poorly in his last start against Chicago on Wednesday and gave up five runs in the first two innings of his previous start against Cleveland.

Left-handed pitcher Francisco Liriano, a sensation in 2006 before an arm injury knocked him out of action for more than a year, will take his spot in the rotation. Randy Ruiz, a 30-year-old career minor-leaguer, can play first base and right field. But he will likely be used as a right-handed designated and pinch hitter.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Boston Red Sox (57-41) at Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (58-38) - 3:55 PM ET

Josh Beckett (9-5, 3.94) vs. Joe Saunders (12-5, 3.07) in a battle of division leaders is usually enough of a good reason to flip towards your local FOX affiliate to catch this game. But admit it. Embrace it. You want to see Manny Ramirez do something silly. You want to see another fan high five. You want to see Manny take a cell phone call during the middle of a pitching change (And by the way, how Verizon hasn't jumped all over that cell phone call in the Green Monster thing yet is beyond me. I mean: Can you hear me now? Hey, you can even get reception in a big giant wall." It's gold, I tell you.) And now that Manny basically turned a Macier Izturis bloop single into a triple with a stumble job for the ages, you want to see how he's going to butcher the next fly ball to come his way.

Well I'm here to tell you that's not nice. Shame on you reveling in the misfortune of others. (Giggles under his breath.)

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

So in the last 48 hours the Milwaukee Brewers have added CC Sabathia to their rotation, and the Chicago Cubs picked up Rich Harden to add to theirs. All the Phillies have managed to do in during that span was lose two games in the standings.

The Phillies have now lost four in a row, and unfortunately for them their losing streak directly coincides with a four-game win streak by the New York Mets. Now both the Mets and Marlins sit only a game and a half behind the Phillies. So the pressure is on the Phillies to add an arm of their own to the rotation.

If you look around the National League right now, things aren't set up too well for Philadelphia. The Brewers now have Ben Sheets and Sabathia. The Cubs have Harden, Carlos Zambrano, and Ryan Dempster. In Arizona the Diamondbacks feature Brandon Webb and Dan Haren at the top of their rotation, while in Los Angeles the Dodgers have a NL-best 3.70 ERA.

The Phillies have Cole Hamels and, um, Jamie Moyer? While the Phillies have the fifth best team ERA in the National League, Hamels is the only member of their rotation who has an ERA under 4.00. Their offense may be pretty dangerous, but once the playoffs start (if the Phillies get there) it's pitchers who dominate, and the Phillies just don't have enough of them.

So when will the Phillies make their move in the NL Arms Race?

It seems that no matter how many times we see it, baseball fans just never learn. Every spring baseball fans and experts alike say that this is the year that the Minnesota Twins are going to finish below .500 and at the bottom of the AL Central. Then summer comes along a few months later, and there they are. Sitting on top, or near the top of the division while the rest of us scratch their heads.

Though it happens every season, it still catches us all by surprise, but this season has been the most baffling of all. There is just no way that the Twins should be sitting at 40-36, only a game and a half behind the first place White Sox. The obvious reasons for this are that the team said goodbye to both Johan Santana and Torii Hunter during the offseason, and that Francisco Liriano has spent his time on the disabled list.

Still, it's not exactly a new phenomenon that teams carry on and continue playing well after saying goodbye to their stars. The Athletics have been doing it for years along with the Twins, so we know it can be done. The difference between these Twins, though, and the Twins and Athletics teams of the past is how they're doing it.

The guys who were supposed to replace what was lost have been horrible so far, yet they're still winning.

The Pfister Hotel in Milwaukee has long been rumored to be haunted. Adrian Beltre has talked about his alleged brushes with the supernatural while staying there, and several members of the Minnesota Twins are just as spooked. From Phil Miller of the Pioneer Press:

Livan Hernandez swears this actually happened. He was sitting in bed, watching TV, when the remote control suddenly hung in midair next to him, and turned off the set. "What you have to do," he explained matter-of-factly, "is get (the remote) back and put it back in the same place and turn on the TV. Then it will go away."

[...] "If you wake up in the middle of the night, sometimes you can feel something in bed with you," Hernandez said. "You can touch it. But if you open your eyes, there's nothing there."

It's not clear whether Hernandez is telling the truth or simply doing his best to scare coach Jerry White, who was so spooked he couldn't fall asleep all night, or the impressionable rookie Carlos Gomez, who claims to have experienced some of Pfister's spookiness first-hand on Friday. Gomez said his iPod repeatedly turned itself on and started vibrating on a table in his room, which scared him so much that he bolted from his room and arrived at Miller Park hours earlier than he needed to simply to avoid being alone. (Yeah, I know, it sounds like someone was simply calling his iPhone, but I'm guessing he ruled that out.)

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

Chicago White Sox (25-20) vs. Cleveland Indians (22-24) - 8:11PM Est.

The White Sox offense has been struggling all season, but fortunately for them, they play in the AL Central where the pitching has been dominating hitters all season. Nobody in the division can hit. The highest scoring team in the Central is the Detroit Tigers, and look what's that gotten them.

Still, the Sox have been able to hang around the top of the division all season long because of their pitching, which has been fantastic. As a Sox fan I've often thought to myself this season "If we could only somehow manage to score four runs a game, we'd be dangerous."

Well, last week Ozzie Guillen finally shook up the offense by switching around the batting order. Jim Thome got dropped from third to fifth, Paul Konerko from fourth to sixth, and A.J. Pierzynski was moved up from sixth to second while Carlos Quentin was moved up to the third spot in the lineup.

Since then? The White Sox are 7-0, and looking to complete their second series sweep in a row tonight. This time against division rival Cleveland.

It seems like Livan Hernandez has been around forever, as that 1997 World Series MVP award of his seems like an ancient memory. It's just hard to believe that Livan is only 33 years old (at least we're told he is, E:60 is still working on finding out the truth). He's also been a pleasant surprise for the Twins this season, because even though Minnesota knew he would eat up innings, I don't think they were expecting him to get off to a 6-1 start.

I'm not sure Livan was expecting to adapt to the American League so well, either, and he's feeling so good about himself right now that he wants to pitch around eight more years.

"I'm going to try for eight more years," he said.

"And if I get a chance to continue after that, I would like to, if I can still get people out," he said. "My family (in Miami) would kill me, though. Everybody there misses me."

I wouldn't doubt that Livan will have the durability to do exactly that. The last time he made less than 30 starts in a season was that 1997 season, when he didn't join the Marlins rotation until halfway through the year. Of course, I think the Twins would be happy if he just continues to throw the way he has this season for another five months, and they can worry about the future after that.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing matchups

Cincinnati Reds (15-23) vs. Florida Marlins (23-14) 7:10PM Est.

Quick, without looking it up, who has the best record in baseball right now? Did you say the Diamondbacks? Close, you were right up until yesterday, but getting swept by the Cubs knocked them off the top of the mountain. The Red Sox? Good choice, they are the defending champs after all, but even though they have the best record in the American League, they aren't the best in baseball.

No, that honor somehow belongs to the Florida Marlins, who have managed to win their last 7 games and are currently an MLB-best 23-14.

Just what the hell is going on here?

It's pretty much become a fact of life when it comes to baseball. Every spring as the country prepares for the new baseball season to start, there's word that this will finally be the year that the Minnesota Twins crash back to earth, and finish towards the bottom of the AL Central. I know I've been guilty of it a few times, as I think I've predicted the Twins downfall the last three or four seasons.

Then they usually end up finishing on top of the AL Central, or near it, and are generally always in contention for a playoff spot come September. After finishing last season with a 79-83 record, their first sub-.500 mark in eight years, they lost their ace pitcher and their gold glove centerfielder. Surely 2008 would see the Twins plummet even further below .500, and have them competing with the Royals for fourth place, right?

Nope. After finishing a sweep of the Tigers on Sunday, the Twins completed a five-game homestand against division rivals Detroit and the White Sox with a 5-0 record. As a result, they now find themselves alone on top of the Central, 1.5 games ahead of the White Sox, and are currently the only team in the division who have won more games than they've lost. All this despite the fact they've allowed more runs than they've scored.