MVN - Most Valuable Network

Slowey’s bad inning dooms Twins

The Twins have such a young starting rotation that they are going to experience growing pains during the course of the season.

It has been evident so far this season. A good example is Nick Blackburn. He seems to have trouble at times pitching with a big lead or going deep in games.

Yesterday afternoon is another example of growing pains for this pitching staff.

Kevin Slowey, who filled in for the injured Scott Baker, pitched well to start the game yesterday, but he had a rough time in the fifth inning, and the Twins could not recover from it.

Slowey just did not have it in that inning. When Jermaine Dye homered to cut the deficit to 2-1, Slowey lost his focus and lost grip of his pitches.

He was throwing balls often in that inning. He threw several straight balls to Juan Uribe, and then Uribe was able to hit the two-run home run off him, to give Chicago a 3-2 lead.

That was it for him and the Twins, who could not hit against Octavio Dotel, Scott Linebrink and Bobby Jenks. The Twins took a 6-2 loss to the White Sox as they lost the series.

If there is something to good about Slowey, it’s that he has the stuff to pitch in the majors. He has done a good job of throwing strikes and getting his groundouts. He can work fast to start the game.

What he needs to do now is find a way to go deep in games and not be frustrated if he makes a mistake like he did with Dye.

This will come with experience.

It’s not just Slowey that has to do this, but the rest of the young pitchers need to do the same.

Until then, Twins just have to learn how to cope with it, and pray for the best.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 11:42 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.