Monday Night Baseball: Liriano’s Recovery, Swisher’s Hot Bat, the Red Hot Rays, and Joel Zumaya’s Gas

Francisco Liriano Watch: After back-to-back gawd awful starts, Liriano bounced back nicely and put together a masterful performance last night, picking up the 2-1 win against the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs (The names alone are enough to love Minor League Baseball. No?). Liriano scattered four hits over seven innings, and did not allow any runs. His ratios were exactly where you want to see them, striking out nine and only walking one. He kept the ball low in the zone, resulting in nine groundouts versus three fly outs. Now the Twins just need to cross their fingers and hope to see some consistency out of their young star. He’ll need to string together a few more performances like tonight’s before he sees the lights of the Big Show again.

In the past few weeks, we’ve seen Nick Swisher gradually fight his way out of his dreadful first half slump. Last night he mashed homers from each side of the plate, one was a grand slam. Despite his incredibly slow start, I think he can still end up with great numbers. During the first half, Swisher had a lower than usual batting average on balls he hit in play (BABIP) and a home run per fly ball average of 9.3% (well below his career average), which suggests that he may have just been very unlucky during his cold spell. At age 27, power hitters are widely believed to reach their peak. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Swish go for 20 more home runs, hitting in the bandbox known as U.S. Cellular Field, between now and season’s end.

The Rays held off the Red Sox on Monday night and created a little more space for themselves in the first place slot in the AL East. Last night marked Tampa Bay’s 50th win, a plateau the Rays have never reached before August, in the franchise’s 10 year history. The loss was Boston’s eleventh straight defeat on the road.

Joel Zumaya picked up his 3rd career save in the against the Twins on Monday night. Don’t get too excited if you own him in your fantasy leagues; the save meant nothing. Amazingly, Todd Jones still has not taken a loss on the season, and was 14 for 14 in save opportunities until Saturday night, despite his current astronomical ERA of 4.78. Zumaya only got the call in the 9th tonight because Jones has pitched in four out of the last five games for the Tigers. Zumaya’s save was a bit shaky, as he put two runners on base, but the fireballer was able to successfully hold onto the 1-run Tigers lead. I was very impressed with Zumaya’s velocity in his first outing that I’ve watched since his surgery. I can’t help but look on in awe every time I see him dial it up into the high 90s, even while delivering from the ¾ arm slot.

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