23 and Counting, Francisco Liriano is Back!

They wanted to count him out, they thought he was a one year wonder.  Turns out the joke is on them, Francisco is back and in a big way.  As of Tuesday night he has pitched three 7+ inning games and has not allowed a run.  So far this season he is 4 for 4 in quality starts.  Now two years after major re constructive surgery, it looks like Francisco is back to where he was in 2006 when he was an All Star and finished third in Rookie of the Year voting.

It really wasn’t that long ago that we were all lining up to own Liriano signed cards.  It wasn’t long ago that we all thought the Twins had the best one two punch in baseball with Santana and Liriano.  Santana is now in NY with the Mets and Liriano has struggled for the better part of two seasons.  Kudos to the Twins though for not giving up on him.  Although it is early in the season, Liriano is pitching as in mid season form.

So far this season he is 3-0 with 0.93 ERA and a strikeout per game rate of 8.2.  He has just been outstanding, and it doesn’t look like it is going to end anytime soon.  In fact, after seeing the way he is pitching, I see him being a major force in the AL this season.  At only 26 he has a nice long career ahead of him and the Twins have themselves an absolute bargain as they are only paying him around $500,000 for the season.

This time two months ago you could have had his autographed card for $2 – $4.  In fact I recently got 4 of them for $9 on the Bay.  Love for Liriano was definitely lost at the beginning of this year, but a quick survey of recently sold Liriano cards show that his cards are running between $15 – $25 and steadily climbing.  As long as he pitches scoreless innings his cards are going to increase at a steady rate.  How do you feel about Liriano? Is this temporary, or is he back?