Rondell keeps Twins rolling Devil Rays 2 at Twins 7 July 19th, 2006 at 10:59 pm

By Kris Richardson

After a mini-slump surrounding the All-Star break in which the Twins lost 5 of 6, the Twins have gotten back into the form they exhibited in June. They’ve won 6 games in a row and even Rondell White is contributing. White tripled his season homerun total with 2 longballs on Wednesdays night. He also had a double in the game to round out a 3-4 night at the plate with 3 RBI. Rondell’s offensive resurgence couldn’t have come at a better time. With the injuries to Lew Ford, Shannon Stewart and Torii Hunter the Twins needed other guys to step up. Jason Tyner did it in his first few games, and now White has started to show signs of life.

Brad Radke also turned in another good start. He allowed just 4 hits and no walks in 7 innings. In typical Radke fashion, both runs came on homeruns. Radke showed, however, that homeruns aren’t so bad when you rarely allow baserunners. In his 10 starts in June and July Radke has just a 2.73 ERA and 4-1 Record.

Game Notes

Luis Castillo was 3-5 with 3 singles. Not only does he have a 13 game hitting streak going, but he also has a .413 OBP in the month of July.
Nick Punto has a 12 game hitting streak and is batting an impressive .322 on the season. That’s not bad for a guy that was supposed to be a utility infielder.
The Twins bullpen hasn’t allowed a baserunner in the last 3 games (5 1/3 IP).

Wildcard help

The Twins got lots of help in the wildcard race on Wednesday. The Tigers beat the White Sox which moved the Twins with 5 games of the Wildcard lead. The Twins are also just 2 games behind the Yankees after Seattle beat them 3-2. The Rangers beat the Blue Jays to increase the Twins lead over them to 1.5 games.

Thursday Afternoon

Johan Santana will try to bring the streak to 7 games in Thursday’s afternoon series finale. After that the Twins will have to head out onto the Road where they have been a completely different team. The next 2 weeks of the season will be very important as they play Cleveland and Chicago on the Road and then host Detroit over the last weekend in July.