May 2007 Archives

The Twins completed their first sweep since April 17-19 on Wednesday afternoon at the dome as they defeated the White Sox in walk-off fashion. After the White Sox got to Scott Baker early is looked like a probable loss, but the Twins were able to claw back and tie the game by the sixth inning and the bullpen completely shut down the Sox bats.

I just mentioned it in my game recap, but I feel like it's big enough news to deserve its own post. Ron Gardenhire made it official in his post-game press conference: Kevin Slowey will make his major league debut for the Twins on Friday night in Oakland. In case you're not familiar with Slowey, here's a quick list of what you should know:

The Twins 9-2 victory over the White Sox on Tuesday night clinched a fourth straight series win for the Twins as they've quickly become the hottest team in the AL Central. They've won 6 of their last 7 and moved into a third place tie with the White Sox and trail the Cleveland Indians by 5.5 games.

The big story of Monday's series opener against the White Sox was the sixth inning incident at first base in which it appeared A.J. Pierzynski purposely stepped on Justin Morneau's foot while crossing first after hitting into an inning-ending double play. It was the second time of the day A.J. had come suspiciously close to Morneau's foot and it sent manager Ron Gardenhire into a tirade against first base umpire Greg Gibson.

The Twins are 2-3 against the White Sox this season and 7-14 within the division. They won't see another division opponent until the end of June, so now would be a good time to win a a fourth straight series. Last season the Twins dominated interleague play and that could very well happen again this year, but most years you need to win within the division and the Twins have a lot of ground to pick up.

After Saturday night's 13 inning game that completely exhausted the Twins bullpen, the Twins needed Carlos Silva to come up with a good start and to go deep into the game. He did both. He lasted into the eighth before giving up his second run of the game and being pulled in favor of Juan Rincon. After allowing a run in the second inning he was pretty much on auto-pilot the rest of the way. After a few rough starts, Silva's return to form couldn't have come at a better time.

The Twins offense impressively took back Toronto's five run lead by scoring 2 runs in the eighth and 3 runs in the ninth. The fought threw 13 innings, but in the end they came up just a bit short and the Jays won 9 to 8. The large deficit, not surprisingly, was the result of Ramon Ortiz.

The Twins will return home on Friday night after a 9 game road trip that started out rough, but finished on a more positive note with two straight victories over Texas. The Twins will hope to keep the momentum going against a Toronto team that's recovered a bit after losing their first 9 games of May.

Despite winning the final two series of the road trip the Twins ended up with a losing record of 4-5 on the trip thanks to the sweep by Cleveland. The Twins defeated the Rangers in the third game of that series by a score of 5 to 3 on Wednesday and will now get a day of rest on Thursday before opening up the weekend series at home against Toronto.

Johan Santana entered Tuesday's game against Texas coming off his most dominate start of the season last week in Cleveland. On Tuesday night he did even better. He had 7 strikeouts through three innings and left the game after the seventh with a season high 13 strikeouts. His only run allowed was on Sammy Sosa's 598th career homer.

Last week the Atlanta Braves released Craig Wilson. This afternoon KFAN 1130 reported a rumor that Wilson's agent is talking with the Twins.

Just a few interesting things to point out this afternoon:

In Milwaukee there was hardly a thing to complain about on Friday and Saturday night. The Twins seemed to be turning a corner. Sunday's loss was disappointing, but could largely be blamed on Ramon Ortiz and Dennys Reyes. Things got ugly on Monday in Texas which could lead to the conclusion that the Twins just happened to catch the Brewers at a good time.

The lack of posts over the past few games are a result of me being in Milwaukee for the series. Unfortunately, the Hilton didn't offer free wifi, so I was able to use that as an excuse to completely stay away from computers for a couple days.

As much as my old-fashioned baseball loving mind hates the idea of inter-league play, I must admit it provides me with a convenient opportunity to see the Twins on the road in a real stadium. I'll be heading to Milwaukee with a couple friends for Friday and Saturday nights' games at Miller Park. I've never been to Miller Park (or really Milwaukee for that matter), so I'm definitely excited about the trip, despite how the Twins are playing heading into the weekend.

Johan Santana had his best start of the season with 2 back-to-back homers in the seventh inning by Victor Martinez and Ryan Garko being his only flaw. Besides the homeruns, Santana allowed just 3 baserunners and struck out a season-high 11 batters through 7 innings. It also marked his 100th straight start that he went at least five innings which is a truly amazing feat. In the past 50 years only 3 other pitchers have had longer streaks:

That past couple years minorleaguebaseball.com has conducted a mock MLB amateur draft and they're gearing up for the 2007 draft right now. Scott (aka yanksfan6129) wrote in to ask for some feedback on what the Twins should be looking to be draft for right now. He'll be the "scouting director" for the Twins mock draft (don't ask me why a Yankee fan is the Twins scouting director) and will be charged with the task of finding the names that match the team's needs.

In the series preview on Monday I said C.C. Sabathia was a bad match up for the Twins offense right now, and that certainly proved true on Wednesday night. The game started after a 30 minute rain delay, but the Twins' bats weren't ever able to get much going off of Sabathia. They managed just 1 run on 5 hits and a walk through eight innings and were defeated handily by a score of 7-1.

For a 15-7 loss, there's still some positive things that can be taken from the game. For the second straight game, the Twins offense was able to put some runs on the board. Michael Cuddyer gave the Twins an early lead with a 2-run homer in the first. The Twins had 3 other home runs--2 from Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel's first. The problem on Tuesday night was Twins pitching.

The Twins have ridded themselves of one problem in Sidney Ponson, but there are still many more. Joe Mauer is still out for at least another week and despite Sunday's breakout performance, the offense has struggled to produce runs as the Twins have lost 4 straight series. To make matters worse they'll take on the 21-14 Indians who are 11-3 at their combined homes (They played a series in Milwaukee).

The bats woke up from their slumber on Sunday night and salvaged one game in the Detroit series. Torii Hunter led the offense with 7 RBIs on 2 homers and a double. The 7 RBIs were a career best for Torii and also set an MLB season high. Torii wasn't the only producer, however as the Twins scored 16 runs on 22 hits and 7 walks while managing to put a run on the board in every inning but the second (and the non-played bottom of the ninth).

Sidney Ponson's stint with the Twins appears to be over. He has been designated for assignment to AAA Rochester and Garret Jones will be called up to replace the active roster spot.

The Twins lost their 4th straight game on Saturday and dropped 2 games under .500 and 6.5 games behind division leading Detroit. The Twins also have now lost 4 straight series and have just 2 wins to show in the first 8 games of their 9 game home stand. Justin Morneau suffered a broken nose in the eighth inning when an errant throw by Nick Punto bounced up off the dirt around 1st base and hit him square in the nose.

Johan Santana lost his third game of the season in the dome after coming into the season with almost 2 years without a loss at home. Johan certainly pitched well enough to get a win on most days, but once again the offense failed to support a Minnesota starting pitcher. Santana left the game with a 2-1 deficit. He struggled early and allowed a run in each of the first and second innings, but settled down to pitch well in his next four innings. He threw 50 pitches in the first 2 innings and just 49 in the final four.

The Twins and Tigers will be shown on National TV for two of the three games. They'll be on FOX Saturday baseball and then will be the Sunday night game on ESPN. The Tigers will come into the Dome just as hot as the Twins are cold. The Tigers have won 9 of 10 and have amounted a healthy 4.5 game lead since the Twins took their first series of the season by 2 games to 1.

The Twins have now been shut out twice in their last six games and have averaged just 2.5 runs/game over that same span. Coming into the season, it was thought that the success or failure of this team would depend on the starting pitching. So far it's been the bats that have dragged this team back down to a .500 record at 17-17. Jose Contreras went the complete game for what was by far his best start of the season. Contreras allowed just five hits

Justin Morneau gave the Twins an early lead on Tuesday night with a solo home run in the second inning. The Twins saw that lead vanish in the third and then a Boof Bonser throwing error allowed 3 runs to score in the sixth inning which gave the White Sox a 4-1 lead. The offense for the Twins continued to fail. They weren't getting timely hits and when they had runners on base they were hitting into double plays. Another loss seemed imminent until the eighth.

The Twins and White Sox had their first meeting in early April shortened to two games because the White Sox bullpen was tired of cold weather. The two teams ended up splitting the low scoring series. Both teams have lost five of their last seven, but the White Sox have just ended a five game losing streak with 2 wins over the LA Angels. They sit next to each other in the standings, each a growing distance (now about 4 games) from the hot Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers.

The big news in baseball on Sunday was the return of Clemens to baseball and the Yankees. In Minnesota, the Yankee's main rival, the Red Sox, were taking care of business against the struggling Twins. While the Yankee fans were getting good news, we were learning that Joe Mauer will head to the 15 day DL with a sore quad muscle that has apparently been bothering him all season.

The Twins gave Julian Tavarez the best start of his season on Saturday night, but still managed to win the low-scoring game 2-1. Johan Santana allowed 1 run, but was forced out after just five innings due to hight pitch count. Matt Guerrier, Jesse Crain, Pat Neshek and Joe Nathan didn't allow a hit in four innings of relief to hold on to the game and give Santana his fourth win of the season.

The Twins failed to score a run against Tim Wakefield and the Boston bullpen of J.C. Romero, Brendan Donnelly and Jonathon Papelbon. The story Friday night wasn't so much about missed opportunities as it was lack of hits. The Twins managed just four hits on the night and additionally had three batters reach on walks.

The Twins have had an up-and-down past couple of weeks. They struggled against KC and Cleveland before looking pretty good last weekend against Detroit. They went on to lose the final two games of the series against Tampa Bay. The toughest stretch of their schedule so far begins this weekend against the Red Sox. Boston comes to the dome with the best record in the AL at 18-9.

This was a game I only saw bits and pieces of, and I missed the 9th and 10th innings, so I'll definitely have to go back and watch the archived game from MLB.tv.

The Devil Rays completely gave this game to the Twins with an inning of the worst defense I may have ever seen at the major league level. After the Twins produced a couple runs in the first, they piled it on in the second with four more. Here's how it went:

The Twins and D-rays split a 4-game set in their first meeting at the Metrodome early in the year. The Twins were lucky to escape with one of the wins as they relied on a top of the ninth inning brain cramp from Carl Crawford and bottom of the ninth walk-off from Justin Morneau to escape with a 3-2 victory.