Radke ends skid Blue Jays 0 at Twins 5 August 13th, 2006 at 10:54 pm

By Kris Richardson

The resurgence of Brad Radke continues to impress me. Early in the season Radke was terrible, and we later discovered that he was indeed pitching with pain in his throwing shoulder. He’s continued to battle through the pain all season and has been an effective pitcher over the past couple months. On Sunday Radke came up with another great outing against one of the league’s best offenses and avoided a four-game sweep by the Blue Jays.

After being held to 1 run in the first three games of the series, the Twins finally put some runs on the board on Sunday. They never had a real big inning, but they seemed to threaten in just about every inning of the game. The Twins’ five runs were scattered across five innings. The big difference in Sunday’s game was that they didn’t hit into six double plays. The Jays still turned two double plays on the Twins which helped avoid a blowout.

Game Notes

Jason Tyner was just a homerun shy of hitting for the cycle. He hit just his second double of the season and his first triple in the game. Tyner has never hit a home run at the maor league level.
Morneau was 2-3 with a double and 2 RBI. He has 103 RBI on the season.
Radke gave up five hits and one walk in seven shutout innings. Matt Guerrier and Joe Nathan each pitched an inning to close out the game.

Tigers are stumbling

After losing two of three games against the Twins the Tigers went on to get swept by the White Sox. The Twins likely would’ve been better off if the Tigers had blown away the White Sox. Either way, it’s unfortunate that the Twins offense was so flat the past few days as they could’ve picked up several games on the Tigers and held their ground on the White Sox and Red Sox.

Coming Up

The Twins will finally get an offday on Monday and then open a home series against the Indians on Tuesday. Johan Santana will start the series against Jason Westbrook.

The White Sox will come to the dome next weekend in what will be the biggest series of the season so far. The Twins will likely throw Bonser, Radke and Santana against the Sox which is about the best they could hope for considering their current rotation struggles.