Apologies for being a couple days late on the player of the week. The holiday weekend put me a little behind schedule. This covers Monday, June 26th through Sunday, July 2nd. The week was, of course, a good one for the Twins. They went 6-0 and outscored their opponents, the Dodgers and Brewers, by a total of 49-16. All-Star selections were also announced Sunday evening and we discovered that Joe Mauer and Johan Santana had made it with the chance for Francisco Liriano to be added with the final vote.

The highlight of the week was Mauer’s 4-5 game followed by his 5-5 game. He closed out the week with a league leading .392 batting average. Liriano also closed out the week with the best start of his career by striking out 12 in 8 shoutout innings. Let’s get into the discussion of the honorable mentions.

Honorable Mention

• Joe Mauer: Mauer was 14-20 with 9 RBI as he made a last-minute pitch to be the AL starter at catcher. He came surprsingly close, but in the end had to be added as a bench player.
• Justin Morneau: Morneau continued to heat up as June ended and July began. He was 9-23 with 2 HR and 6 RBI.
• Michael Cuddyer: Cuddy quietly continued to be an offensive force for the Twins in the cleanup spot. He picked up 8 RBI on 8 hits last week. His most notable hit was the triple on Saturday night against Milwauke Closer Derrick Turnbow to tie the game in the eighth.
• Kyle Lohse: Lohse had 2 relief outings during the week. On Tuesday he pitched 2 scoreless innings against the Dodgers and he pitched a scoreless inning on Sunday against Milwaukee. In total, he pitched 3 scoreless innings and allowed just 1 hit and no walks. With the demotion of Boof Bonser, Lohse may see a return to the rotation in mid July when the Twins need a fifth starter again.

Player of the Week: Francisco Liriano

The 22 year old Francisco Liriano continued to amaze the baseball world with 2 outstanding starts last week. Liriano went 7 innings and struck out 8 in his tuesday victory against the Dodgers and on Sunday he shutout the Brewers over 8 innings and struck out a career high 12 batters. For the week he had a 1.20 ERA and gave up just 8 hits and 1 walk. For a couple days he had just enough innings to qualify him for the league lead in ERA at 1.99. He’s also a favorite to win the final vote for All-Star selection. If that’s the case the Twins would send 3 players aged 27 or younger to the mid-summer classic.