First, Francisco Liriano has been recalled to pitch on Sunday against the Royals. Slowey has been placed on the 15-day DL, retroactive to April 4th. After Thursday's rainout, that comes as a surpise to me, but I suppose they would've had to make a move at some point by early next week.

Livan Hernandez has been better than anyone could've hoped through his first three starts of the season. He pitched 7.0 scoreless innings in Friday's series opener against Kansas City. Through his first three starts, he's given the Twins 7 solid innings in each and all have led to victories. While he has allowed hits at a rate of 1 per inning, he's given up only 1 walk all season. His strikeout total, however, puts him on a pace even more abysmal than his less than 4 K/9 in 2007. It's almost inevitable that he's going to start getting hit hard soon, so enjoy the good times while they last.

Neither team did any scoring after Justin Morneau's solo home run in the third inning to extend the Twins' lead to 5-0. The Twins' big inning came in the second when a Carlos Gomez double helped the Twins to 4 runs.

Matt Tolbert continues to be on fire. He got the start at SS and was 3 for 4 with a walk, a stolen base and 1 RBI. He's batting a healthy .556 through his first 17 big-league at-bats.

Game Notes

• Morneau's home run was his third on the season.
• Carlos Gomez had a double and a triple in the game. He has only 1 SB in the past 5 games, but that's largely because his last 3 hits have been extra-base hits, leaving him with few bases left to steal.
• Joe Mauer was 0-5 dropping his season line to .278/.303/.333.
• Livan Hernandez leads baseball with 3 wins.
• Joe Nathan saw his first action since Saturday, April 5th. His appearance in the ninth was a non-save situation.
• The Twins are 5-5 on the season, which puts them 1/2 game behind the 5-4 White Sox and 1 game behind the Royals.

Looking ahead

Boof Bonser will start on Saturday night against Brett Tomko, who held the Twins to five scoreless innings last weekend in the Royals' 3-1 victory. I'll be at the game, rain or shine, so I'll probably have nothing to say until the end of the weekend.