The Twins extended their season long win streak to 10 games with a Sunday victory over the Brewers. The win also completed the Twins third straight sweep. Francisco Liriano got off to a less than perfect start. He hit Rickie Weeks with a pitch and gave up a single to Jeff Cirillo. While pitching to Corey Hart, he caught a spike in the mound and tripped before delivering a pitch. The balk moved runners to second and third with no outs. Two strikeouts and a groundout got him out of the jam with no runs given up. Liriano was near perfect for the rest of the game—giving up just 3 hits and a walk through 8 shutout innings. Liriano also recorded a career high 12 strikeouts.

Micheal Cuddyer singled in the first run of the game in the first inning. The Twins added 5 more runs in the 3rd thanks to an error by Rickie Weeks on what would've been a inning-ending double play by Justin Morneau.

Kyle Lohse pitched a perfect 9th inning and the Twins went on to win 8-0. The Twins outscored the Brewers 26-9 in the series. Detroit held off Pittsburgh in the 9th inning to retain their 10 game lead in the Central. The White Sox lost to the Cubs to cut their lead over the Twins to 7.5 games.

Game Notes

• Justin Morneau hit his 21st homerun of the season and got his 67th and 68th RBI.
• Liriano improved to 9-1 on the year and dropped his ERA to 1.99. He now has enough inning to qualify as the league leader in ERA.
• Mike Redmond was 2-5 as a catcher. Joe Mauer had the day off.
• Torii Hunter tripled for his only hit. He also walked in the game.

June Awards

The Twins pulled off a first with the June awards: The swept them.

• Joe Mauer was player of the month.
• Johan Santana was pitcher of the month.
• Francisco Liriano was rookie of the month.

Those three players all have a chance of making the All-Star game. Mauer and Santana are already in and Liriano is a nominee for the fan pick along with Travis Hafner, Ramon Hernandez, A.J. Pierzynski and Justin Verlander. I don't see how Liriano couldn't win the balloting, but Joe Mauer also didn't lead the voting for catcher.

Kansas City

The Twins will head to Kansas City for a 3 game series to begin Monday. Santana should start things off nicely for the Twins.