It wasn't all bad Twins 7 at Indians 15 May 15th, 2007 at 9:23 pm

By Kris Richardson

For a 15-7 loss, there’s still some positive things that can be taken from the game. For the second straight game, the Twins offense was able to put some runs on the board. Michael Cuddyer gave the Twins an early lead with a 2-run homer in the first. The Twins had 3 other home runs–2 from Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel’s first. The problem on Tuesday night was Twins pitching.

Ramon Ortiz gave up six runs and left the game after just 1 innings. Glen Perkins allowed an additional 3 runs in the second inning and as the game graph below demonstrates, the game was over at that point.

Earlier today Joe Christensen posted about Nick Punto’s comparison to other third baseman in the league and pointed out how despite Punto’s complete lack of production at the plate he was still errorless in the field. Early in the game Punto misplayed a ground ball he probably should have had (no error given), and in the sixth inning he made an error that kept the inning alive for Cleveland to add 6 more runs to the board.

Game Notes (the positives)

Garret Jones got a hit in his first MLB game. He pulled a single to right field in the seventh. He also walked in the game.
Morneau hit his 10th and 11th homers of the season, but both were solo shots and came after the game was out of reach.
Kubel hit his first home run and also singled. He has 5 hits in his last two games and has moved his batting average up to .265.
Mike Redmond had a single in the game to extend his hitting streak to 8 games while Joe Mauer has been on the DL.
Of all the offense, Cuddyer really had the only hit that seemed to matter with his 2-run homer in the first that drove in RBIs 25 and 26 on the season.

Game Notes (the ugly)

Ramon Ortiz is getting worse by the start. 2 starts ago he allowed 4 run in 4 IP and his last start he allowed 5 runs in 6.0 IP. Last night he allowed 6 runs with 34 pitches in the first.
Jesse Crain allowed 4 hits and a home run in the sixth, but according to Dick Bremer, “at least none of the runs were earned” because of Punto’s error.

With Detroit winning, the Twins lost a game to them and Cleveland and now sit a full 6 games out of first.