In a way Friday night's series opener against Detroit was encouraging in that the Twins put up a good 10 inning fight against baseball's best team. However, it was also disappointing in that Francisco Liriano put together another masterpiece but the offense couldn't score more than 2 runs off rookie Zach Miner who was coming off two straight rough outings.

Liriano got off to a rough start, giving up 2 runs in the first inning. It was smooth sailing from there, however. Liriano gave up 3 hits and 3 walks while striking out 12 in eight innings. He gave up only the 2 first inning runs. Rincon gave up 3 hits in the top of the 10th and allowed Detroits first run in 9 innings to score. The Twins couldn't come back with any runs in the bottom of the inning against Todd Jones.

Miner allowed just 4 hits and 2 walks in the six innings he pitched. He gave up 1 run in the first when a Joe Mauer sacrifice grounder scored Luis Castillo who led off the inning with a walk. The second Twins run came in the third when Luis Castillo singled to score Jason Bartlett who had walked and stolen second. The Detroit bullpen was strong—allowing just 2 baserunners in 4 innings.

Game Notes

• Justin Morneau had 2 hits, but was part of Kubel's GIDP in the 2nd inning and was thrown out at second on a bad sacrifice bunt by Kubel in the 7th.
• Liriano improved his strikeout count to 137. He's now fourth in the big leagues in K's despite having fewer innings than any of the other leaders.

Remember that it's still July and despite the hype that this series is getting it's not really that crucial in the grand scheme of things. The important thing for the Twins will be to avoid the sweep and continue to play good baseball. They played a good game last night, so there's no reason to feel down about the Twins chances for continued success. With Radke and Santana pitching the next two games they've still got a good chance of taking 2 of 3 in the series.

Finally, do you think the Twins would've won this game if they had one more big bat in the lineup? Someone like a Carlos Lee or Alfonso Soriano?