Twins 0, Indians 3 Twins 0 at Indians 3 April 8th, 2006 at 8:48 pm
The only things colder than the weather in Cleveland were the bats of the Twins. Jason Johnson, a mediocre pitcher, dominated the Twins for 7 innings. Johnson gave up 4 hits and one walk in the game.
Scott Baker had a less than stellar start. Unable to complete the fifth, he gave up 9 hits, 1 walk, and all of Cleveland’s runs. Cleveland spread their runs across three innings. The first one came from a Travis Hafner homerun in the 2nd inning. Hafner also drove in a run in the 5th on a double to follow up Jhonny Peralta’s leadoff double. Hafner was 3-for-3 with a walk today. He has reached base in all 9 of his plate appearances against the Twins.
The other Cleveland run came in the 4th when Casey Blake singled to score Ben Broussard. Blake was 3-for-4 in the game, hitting in the 9-spot.
The Twins just couldn’t get a rally going today. Their most likely opportunity to score came in the 7th when Rondell White doulbed to lead off the inning. Torii Hunter grounded out to short, Justin Morneau flew out to center, and Tony Batista ended the inning with a fly ball to left. No Twin hitter got more than 1 hit today. The Twins totalled 6 hits in the game.
Notes
- Fransisco Liriano pitched 2.2 innings in relief of Baker. He did give up 2 hits in the 7th, his final inning, but he looked great otherwise. Of the 10 batters he faced he recorded 8 outs, 4 of which were on strikeouts. Liriano has been the only pitcher (besides Nathan who has only 1 IP) that’s had much success for the Twins thus far.
- Luis Rodriguez singled in an 8th inning pinch hit appearance for Juan Castro. You may remember his pinch hit homerun earlier in the week in Toronto.
- Nick Punto got the start at 2nd, and Gardenhire deemed it acceptable to bat him in the 2-spot. Some things I just don’t understand. Punto was 0-for-4 with a strikeout and 4 runners left on base.
Santana will take the mound tomorrow against Jake Westbrook. Westbrook will be the best starter the Twins have faced this series, so it’s safe to say that we’re going to need a good start from Santana if we have any hope of salvaging a game in this series.
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