The fact that the Twins won Thursday afternoon's game against the Kansas City Royals doesn't make me feel much better about the way the Twins' played. All-around, they were terrible, and against any other team they should have been crushed. However after 11 innings one team was finally able to put a single run on the board and that just so happened to be the Twins.

Zach Greinke, Jimmy Gobble and Joel Peralta held the Twins offense to five hits through 10 innings. It'd be easy to praise Twins' pitching for 11 innings of shutout innings, but that credit probably lies more with the KC offense. Boof Bonser managed to throw 108 pitches in just five innings thanks to a complete lack of control. He walked 7 batters and barely half of his pitches were for strikes. In total, Twins pitching allowed 10 walks in the game. That's the most this season, and as far as I can find it's the most they've allowed in a single game since May 7, 2004. The last time a single Twins starter allowed 7 or more walks in a start was when Johan Santana did it on July 15th, 2002 (Full list), so maybe this is a good sign for Boof? I find it amazing that 10 batters can be walked in a game and the offense can still be shut out.

The Twins also got beat up physically in the game. Torii Hunter left the game for the hospital after taking a pitch off the face in the second inning. He initially began to charge the mound before apparently realizing the pain and dropping to the ground. Considering how things initially looked, Hunter and the Twins are pretty lucky with the outcome. Catcher Mike Redmond also took the back swing of Carlos Pena to the shoulder, but toughed it out and ultimately won the game with his RBI single. Jason Bartlett was also hit by a pitch, but it got him in the back so it was relatively harmless. Matt Guerrier provided a bit of payback by getting Reggie Sanders late in the game.

Game Notes

• The struggles of Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer continued with 1 for 5 games for each. Morneau did actually start off the 11th with a single and ultimately scored the winning run. However, with runners on 1st and 3rd in the 1st inning Morneau came to the plate against Greinke, who had been struggling with control. He took just one pitch before weakly grounding out to end the inning.
• Joe Mauer was 0 for 3 in the game with an intentional walk. He's been hitless in the last two games now since ending his 6 game hit streak on Wednesday night.
• Jason Kubel provided two hits including a double in the ninth inning.
• Alexi Casilla's inexperience has shown recently. He made his second error in the field today and went 0-4 while stranding 5 base runners from the lead off spot.
• Nick Punto was 0-4 to drop his season average to .188. It might be time for Gardy to try some different lineups, though I do sympathize with his lack of viable options for that #2 spot.

One positive note about April 07 is that the Twins haven't been as bad as last year and no one else in the AL Central has been particularly hot as the Tigers were in April 06. Cleveland has now rattled off five straight wins, but the Twins still sit just 1.5 games behind them and a half game behind Detroit.