Mauer topped his hit total of Monday night’s game with 5 singles on Tuesday night against the Dodgers. I wish I could say I was surprised, but Mauer had proven over the past three month’s that he’s among baseball’s best pure hitters. He may be on a June tear, but he was no slouch in the other months of the season.

• April: .319 Avg, .402 OBP
• May: .386 Avg, .432 OBP
• June: .448 Avg, .520 OBP (Through June 27th)

Any of those months alone are pretty impressive, but the fact that he’s put together 3 solid months and actually improved with each passing month is truly special. All season long he has not gone 2 games in a row without a hit. The word “slump” isn’t in his vocabulary. While it’s doubtful he’ll hit at this pace all season long, his consistency mixed with his relatively good speed gives good reason to think he could win the league batting title. His current batting average of .389 is the highest he’s had all season at the end of a game (he was hitting .388 on June 10th).

Mauer’s five hits only translated into 1 run and 1 RBI for him in the game, but that’s out of his control. The Twins certainly had no shortage of runs scored as they put up 9 runs against Derek Low who had been having a pretty good year in the NL. Only two of the Twins’ 15 hits were extra base hits—a triple from Punto and a double from Hunter. They continue to string together singles and take advantage of walks. Jason Bartlett was hit by a pitch with bases loaded in the 3rd to score the first run of the game.

Liriano did what he’s accustomed to doing. He went out and threw seven solid innings and struck out eight Dodger batters. The Dodgers have been the NL’s most prolific offense this season in terms of runs scored, so it’s impressive to see Twins pitching hold them to just 2 runs in each of the last two games. Liriano is now 8-1 and is still about 3 innings shy of the innings needed to qualify for ERA leader. He should qualify after a couple more starts. Two solo homeruns were the only damage done against Liriano. Kyle Lohse continued to prove that he can be effective when he’s pitching with a massive lead. He pitched 2 scoreless innings and gave up just 1 hit.

The Twins made 2 errors in the game. Justin Morneau made a stupid error on a softly hit ball that stayed just inside the baseline. He took his eye off it and it bounced off the base of his glove. No damage was done. Nick Punto also had a groundball hit off his glove over at third.

Game Notes

• Liriano’s ERA actually rose in the game to 2.21.
• Nick Punto was 2-5 with a triple and a single in the #2 spot in the lineup. He also had 2 runs scored and 2 RBI and didn’t slide into first at all in the game (and he did have the chance to).
• Ruben Sierra got his second start at DH and was 0-3 with a walk and a run scored.
• A night after snapping his 11-game hit streak, Jason Bartlett went 2-3 and also reached on a hit-by-pitch. He scored a run and drove in 2.

Feel-Good Notes

• The Twins have won 14 of their last 15 games. Of course this is reminding everyone of the Twins’ 15 game win streak in June of 1991. The difference here is that they’re not gaining any ground in the standings and it’s going to take a lot more work to make the playoffs and win the World Series.
• The Twins are 17-7 in June after beginning the month 1-5.
• Twins starters have had 7 straight quality starts.
• In the last 15 games the Twins have only given up 4 or more runs twice. 5 runs on Jun 20th and 5 runs on Jun 21st.
• Over the last 5 game they’ve outscored opponents 35-7.
• If the Twins were in the AL West they’d be tied for first with Oakland.