August 2006 Archives

Johan Santana did exactly what you want your ace to do: he went out and stopped the Twins 3-game skid before it turned into a season-ending slump. Santana allowed just five hits and a run while striking out 11 Kansas City Batters. The Twins needed the strong outing from Santana as their offense continued to slump with only three runs.

The Twins have lost two straight games to a team they should beat. There's still a month left in the season, but if the race comes down to the final days of the season, they might be able to look back at two games that slipped away, despite pretty good pitching performances from Matt Garza and Boof Bonser. For a while it looked like Wednesday was going to shape up to be a good day for the Twins. Detroit was losing its second game in New York, the White Sox were losing, and the Twins were leading the Royals 2-0. That all changed abruptly.

The Twins have seemed to play their poorest baseball after off days, and Tuesday's series opener was no exception. The offense could only muster 5 hits against mediocre lefty, Mark Redman. This was following the 1-run performance on Sunday against lefthander Mark Buerhle, who has also struggled in the second half of the season. The White Sox victory over Tampa Bay puts the Twins back in second in the wildcard race—by 1/2 game.

The last two nights have been perfect indications that the playoff race is heating up. Two of the most exciting games of the season came back to back, and best of all, the Twins won both. The Twins jumped out to an early lead against Jose Contreras, scoring five runs in the first three innings and knocking Contreras out of the game after 2 2/3 innings. Santana wasn't as dominate as he usually is, but he managed to get through 7 innings allowing just three runs (two earned) and it looked like everything was going well—the Twins were cruising to victory and the bullpen was going to get some rest. Then things got interesting.

I'm not sure if it was Steve Bartman, a good Twins fan or a typical White Sox fan, but some guy at U.S. Cellular field helped out the Twins in the bottom of the ninth on Friday night. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and Chicago trailing by 1 run with a runner on second, Jermaine Dye hit a foul ball near the stands along the first base line. Justin Morneu ran to the and put his glove under the ball only to have it bumped by the fan. Interference was called and the game was over. Twins Win!

The Twins offense had been lackluster in the run department the past few games, but it returned to form against the Orioles on Thursday night. Michael Cuddyer was 4-4 with 4 RBI, Joe Mauer was 3-4 with 4 RBI and Justin Morneau hit his 32nd homer of the season. Torii Hunter also hit his 4th homerun in the last six games to push his season total to 19. It was the 3,4,5 and 6 hitters that provided all of the Twins' 11 RBI in the game—something I wouldn't mind seeing a lot of in the final month of the season.

It's become a common story for the Twins in 2006: shut down by a mediocre pitcher. Adam Loewen entered the Baltimore rotation on June 3rd and has never managed to complete 7 innings. He came into the game with a 3-4 record, a 6.12 ERA and a .369 opponent batting average. The Twins managed just four hits and one run through 8 innings against Loewen, but managed to tack on two runs against Latroy Hawkins in the ninth.

The Twins were pretty flight all-around on Saturday. Sloppy defensive play is being blamed for the 4-1 loss, and there's definitely some validity to that clame, however, the offense also only scored 1 run. It's tough to win games with 1 run scored.

Friday night's series opener between the Twins and the White Sox was the game that the White Sox were supposed to win. Boof Bonser hadn't shown much all season long and the way of the offense has struggled over the past week and a half, it appeared the Twins would need good pitching to win games. However, Boof pitched just well enough to keep the Twins in the game and the bullpen shut down the White Sox, allowing just one hit—a weak infield chopper— in the final 3 2/3 innings of the game.

For the second straight night the Twins put together an eighth inning rally to beat the Cleveland Indians. Just as important, the Kansas City Royals were once again able to defeat the White Sox which allowed the Twins to move to within 1 game of the White Sox. Detroit also lost, to Boston, which moved the Twins to within 7.5 games of the AL Central lead. Boston is just 1 game behind the Twins.

The resurgence of Brad Radke continues to impress me. Early in the season Radke was terrible, and we later discovered that he was indeed pitching with pain in his throwing shoulder. He's continued to battle through the pain all season and has been an effective pitcher over the past couple months. On Sunday Radke came up with another great outing against one of the league's best offenses and avoided a four-game sweep by the Blue Jays.

Last week I asked if Matt Garza was the answer. By no means am I going to draw any conclusions based on one start, but clearly the jump from the minors to the majors involves some adjustments. Garza's first start, where he gave up eight hits and seven runs in just 2 2/3 innings surely raised a few thoughts. The Twins will surely give Garza another start or two before making any decisions on him. September will be rolling around soon, so Garza will likely remain on the roster for the remainder of the season, regardless of whether he's in the rotation or not.

The Twins finally won a game at Comerica Park after 7 straight losses there this season. Brad Radke held the Tigers to 2 runs through seven innings despite giving up 9 hits while Rincon and Nathan sealed the victory with scoreless 8th and 9th innings. The win put the Twins in a three way tie for the wildcard lead, pending the outcome of the White Sox and Yankees game. If the White Sox lose they'll fall a half game behind the Twins and Red Sox, but a win would put them alone in the lead.

On Sunday the Twins completed a four game sweep over baseball's worst team, and it probably came at a time when that team was playing even worse than it usually does. On Monday the Twins had to play baseball's best team in Detroit where they're 0 and 6. Nothing came easily for the Twins on Monday night. Jason Bartlett, who was 5-5 on Sunday, was 0-3 on Monday and hit into two double plays. A team that got 22 hits just a day before, had just 8 hits on Monday. They also only got the aid of one walk in the game. To make matters worse, Francisco Liriano was roughed up and lasted just four innings.

There were a lot of hits in Sunday's series finale in Kansas City. The Twins totaled 22 hits in the game, but no one had more than Jason Bartlett's 5. In the past week, since July 31st, Bartlett has had 5 multi-hit games and he's seen his average rise to .377. He of course, has only about half the plate appearances required to qualify as a league leader, but he's no doubt been extremely valuable at the bottom of the order. On Sunday he drove in the Twins first run of the game with a bloop single just past Royal first baseman Ryan Shealy.

It's really pretty sad to watch the Kansas City Royals play. Their pitching has walked 34 batters in three games so far which has allowed the Twins to come within a game of sweeping the 4 game series, despite the Twins not playing so well upon coming to Kansas City. The Royals also don't seem to have a bright future. They don't have a good core of young players that they're looking to to bring them out of the cellar in the next couple years. Of course, playing the Royals couldn't have come at a better time for the Twins.

There's no doubt that Matt Garza is good, but even Francisco Liriano wasn't great when he debuted last fall. Last September he was 1-2 with a 5.70 ERA. I will admit, however, that the Twins don't have any better options right now.

The Twins won the opening game of the series on Monday night by a score of 15-2 yet they still managed to get outscored in the series by a score of 21-17 as they dropped Tuesday's game 9-0 and then lost on Wednesday afternoon by a score of 10-2. Boof Bonser showed us again that he's not ready (and may never be) for the major leagues. Sure, he didn't get much help from his defense as Justin Morneau and Nick Punto each made errors in the ugly fourth inning, but Bonser still gave up 6 hits and 2 walks in 4 innings.

There's some bad news in Twins nation and it isn't that the Twins lost 9-0 to the Rangers on Tuesday night. The Twins website reported that Francisco Liriano will skip his next start with pain in his throwing elbow. They're downplaying it as a precautionary measure, but I can't help but be a little worried. Boof Bonser is being recalled to make the start on Wednesday, and I'm willing to bet his second go-around in the majors won't be much better than his first.