The Twins avoided a 4-game sweep with their 8-4 victory against the Mariner’s on Wednesday afternoon. The first inning saw 11 batters come to the plate for the Twins and the 7-run inning was highlighted by Michael Cuddyer’s grand slam. Alexi Casilla also tripled in the inning. Jason Kubel added an eighth run in the second inning with an RBI single that drove in Torii Hunter.

Fortunately 8 runs would be enough, because the Twins reverted to their old ways for the remainder of the game by scoring no runs.

Mariner starter Miguel Batista left the game after 2 innings and lefty reliever Ryan Rowland-Smith held the Twins hitless for 4 innings. They knocked around John Parrish for five hits in the final two innings, but converted none to runs.

Carlos Silva had another nice start, walking none and allowing 8 hits through 7 innings. He allowed 2 of Seattle’s 4 runs. Pat Neshek struggled in the eighth, allowing 2 runs. I’m not sure why Gardy is using Neshek in an 8-2 game. He’s been used a lot over the season and the workload seems to be catching up to him. Why not let him rest when they have a comfy 6-run lead?

Game Notes

• The Twins worked their record back to .500 at 63-63.
• Silva improved his record to 10-12
• Jason Kubel led the Twins with three hits (all singles). He’s batting .321 in the month of August.
• Cuddyer had just one hit on the day, but it was the big first inning grand slam. He increased his RBI total on the season to a respectable 71.
• Casilla hit what will hopefully be the first of many career triples.
• Nick Punto’s batting average finally dropped below the Mendoza line to .199 with a 0-2 day at the plate. He walked once and drove in a run with a sac fly.

Up Next

The Twins will start a 4-game series in Baltimore on Thursday. Boof Bonser (5-10, 4.93) will face off against Steve Trachsel (6-7, 4.81) on Thursday night. Johan Santana will try to follow up on his 17 K performance with a Friday night start and the man he’s chasing for the strikeout title, Erik Bedard will start on Sunday. I’m still trying to decide if I’ll be able to stomach watching that one.

Baltimore got beat by Texas in the first game of their double-header Wednesday by a score of 30 to 3 (yes, I said 30), so you can bet they’re not feeling so hot right now. 16 of the runs came in the final two innings of the game.