Dorks And Losers

For­mer Min­nesota Twins stud pitcher Fran­cisco Liri­ano lost Mon­day night and fell to a Barry Zito-esque 5–12 record and a 5.80 ERA. Liri­ano doesn’t seem to have fully regained his for­mer 2006 form after under­go­ing Tommy John Surgery in 2008.

As painful as it is to admit about a for­mer San Fran­cisco Giants player, Liriano’s strug­gles pro­vide vin­di­ca­tion to cur­rent Giants GM Brian Sabean who was much crit­i­cized in trad­ing him in the ill-fated deal for A J. Pierzyn­ski in 2003. Sure, Sabean also traded away now-star closer Joe Nathan, but now he shouldn’t feel as tor­mented over the oft-injured for­mer Domini­can prospect being a throw-in.

The worry of hav­ing to deal with an injury-prone pitcher wasn’t worth it, no mat­ter how tal­ented. Just ask the Chicago Cubs in how much they strug­gled try­ing to fit Mark Prior and Kerry Wood into their plans for all those con­tend­ing years.

The Giants have strug­gled in the post–Barry Bonds years, but now with the team win­ning (a 64–54 record thanks to Tim Lince­cum, Matt Cain, and Pablo San­doval) and being play­off con­tenders, Sabean can now oper­ate under a mandate-free ownership.

[photo via Every Joe]

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