Refreshed Liriano Gets Test vs. Angels at LinesMaker

Refreshed Liriano Gets Test vs. Angels

Noth­ing has been easy for Twins left-hander Fran­cisco Liri­ano to begin the season.

Skipped over in his last start because of early sea­son strug­gles, in which he went 0–3 with a 11.02 ERA, Liri­ano has had time to clear his head and work on his mechanics.

Whether the tac­tic has worked or not will become clear Tues­day when he takes the mound against the Angels at Angel Stadium.

“Hon­estly, I’m just excited to see him back out there. He’s been sit­ting around long enough,” Min­nesota man­ager Ron Gar­den­hire said. “I’m excited to see ‘Cisco go out there and take the ball. We need him in our rota­tion. This will hope­fully be a fun time where he can relax and hope­fully go about his business.”

Liri­ano isn’t try­ing to think too much about start­ing again and instead is choos­ing to focus on what he has to do to be suc­cess­ful against a strug­gling Angels lineup.

“I’m just try­ing to stay tall. I’m try­ing to locate my fast­ball,” Liri­ano said. “Just stay­ing tall is the main thing for me. Some­times I get too low. So I want to stay tall and downhill.”

With the Angels lim­ited to just 15 runs in the last eight games and fin­ish­ing April with a 8–15 record, man­ager Mike Scios­cia is try­ing to make sure that his club stays loose and relaxed.

“I think the impor­tant thing for us is to keep this envi­ron­ment pos­i­tive, keep the guys work­ing towards a goal of not try­ing to do too much,” Scios­cia said. “Less is more, for sure, and we need these guys to just play their game, not try to be superhuman.”

And while the team is in fourth place in the Amer­i­can League West and came into Tuesday’s game 24th in the Majors in runs per game, Scios­cia still believes the team’s effort is there.

“You can’t gen­er­al­ize, but there’s cer­tainly more of a gripping-the-bat-too-tight sce­nario as opposed to a lack of focus,” Scios­cia said. “And I think that’s some­thing that guys just need to play free and under­stand let’s go out and play base­ball, and that just starts to dissipate.”

Twins: Mauer misses first game
After play­ing in every inning of the Twins’ first 21 games, catcher Joe Mauer was out of the lineup against the Angels on Mon­day after tak­ing a foul ball off his left knee Sunday.

Mauer was hit right above his knee by a foul tip from Roy­als catcher Brayan Pena in the ninth inning of the Twins’ 7–4 win over Kansas City.

“I’m pretty sore from yes­ter­day,” Mauer said. “I’m going to get in there and get some treat­ment like I’ve been doing. Hope­fully, I’ll be back in there [Tuesday].”

Angels: Williams gets start
Right-hander Jerome Williams will get the start Tues­day after toss­ing two straight qual­ity out­ings since open­ing the sea­son with a loss.

He got the no-decision Thurs­day against the Rays despite allow­ing two runs on five hits in seven innings. On the sea­son, Williams is 1–1 with a 5.51 ERA.

• Vet­eran cor­ner infielder Jorge Cantu opted out of his Minor League con­tract with the Angels on Mon­day and is now a free agent. Cantu was signed over the off­sea­son and began the 2012 cam­paign with Triple-A Salt Lake after the Angels opted to go with util­ity man Alexi Amarista as their 14th posi­tion player.

Worth Not­ing
• Twins man­ager Ron Gar­den­hire will miss the club’s three-game series against the Mariners in Seat­tle this week­end to attend his daugh­ter Tara’s grad­u­a­tion from South­west Min­nesota State. Bench coach Scott Ull­ger will serve as man­ager in his absence.

• Torii Hunter is three runs shy of 1,000 for his career, while Albert Pujols is one run shy of 1,300 for his career.

Our sports betting news features unique sports betting articles as well as current sports news compiled from leading wire services. This arti­cle was dis­trib­uted by Syn­di­cated Sports news wire and aggre­ga­tion ser­vice. For more MLB news see: Refreshed Liri­ano gets test vs. Angels.

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