July Awards: Minnesota Twins

As I have done every month this year I will continue giving out monthly awards. I will start with the Twins tonight and work my way down through all the affiliated. The Twins had a decent month in July going 14-14 and stayed in the race as they only trail first place Detroit by 3.5 games and a good couple of months and the Twins can return to postseason play. Everyone let me know what you think of my picks you can either email me at travis_aune@yahoo.com or leave a comment in the comment box.

• Pitcher of the Month: Matt Guerrier- Normally I like to choose a starter for pitcher of the month because they pitch more innings. However, in July there was noone that deserved to not only be up for this award, but honestly deserved to be in the Majors. Look at these ERA's out of our starters. Baker- 4.45, Blackburn- 6.32, Liriano- 5.32, Perkins- 7.40, Swarzak- 3.50, but only made 3 starts. Those are some bad era's so you could see why I chose a reliever for this award. However, even if some of those starters had better numbers you could make a case for Matt Guerrier getting the award anyway as he was filthy in July. Guerrier went 2-0 with a miniscule 0.55 era in 16.1 innings of work. In those 16.1 innings Matt only gave up 1 earned run. Guerrier pitched in 13 games in July and only gave up 7 hits. Guerrier only walked 1 batter while striking out an impressive 9 batters. Most impressive to me is he held hitters to a tiny .123 opponents batting average. Matt Guerrier has turned out to be an very effective 8th inning guy and that is going to allow the Twins alot of flexibility next season. With the returns of Pat Neshek and Boof Bonser the Twins can be cautious with those guys and allow them to come back slow knowing that the 8th inning is covered. I am still concerned about Matt pitching too many games this year and it may show up in August and September, but so far so good and with more help next year he will continue to dominate.
• Others Considered: Anthony Swarzak, Joe Nathan, Jose Mijares

• Hitter of the Month: Justin Morneau- With some stiff competition for this award because quite honestly the reason for the Twins struggles this year has very little to do with the offense for a change. Justin Morneau continued his charge for his 2nd MVP in his career with another good month in the month of July. Morneau hit a very good .280 at the plate with 7 homeruns and 19 rbi's. Those are unbelievable numbers by themselves, but he added 5 doubles to bring his numbers to .280/.380/.559 for an overall OPS of .939 which was his second best month of the year just behind May when he hit 9 homeruns and added 29 rbi's. Morneau kept the Twins in the race one handed as Joe Mauer cooled down a little bit. On the year Morneau is hitting .302 with 28 homeruns and 91 rbi's with 51 games left. So he will probably on pace for a .305 average with 38 homeruns and 125 rbi's which should be good enough for his 2nd MVP with the Twins. Morneau and Mauer balance each other and that is why it is so important to keep these 2 together, because like Orlando Cabrera everyone likes some M&M's.
• Others Considered: Jason Kubel, Joe Mauer, Michael Cuddyer