Another Minnesota Ambush

The San Francisco Giants thought they pulled off the robbery of the century in '04 when they traded a couple of unknown propects to the Minnesota Twins for established catcher A.J. Pierzynski. But the trade turned into the worst ambush in Minnesota since the James Gang dismounted in front of the Northfield Bank. One of the propects turned out to be Joe Nathan, one of baseball's top closers, and the other one (San) Francisco Liriano, a lefty version of Twins fireballing ace Johan Santana. Liriano will come into his own this year, and eventually become the third of the three Twins aces with Brad Radke. But don't expect Liriano to bound onto the scene instantly. Management has noticed one of his shoes was untied the other day, and he showed up for a team meeting chewing gum and did not bring enough for everybody. They'll keep nitpicking him to death like that for a while the same way they needlessly held back Santana for one silly reason or another when Santana first came up. Hopefully, he'll be entrenched no later than June 1, but you never know.