The Twins won their second straight series and 2nd game in a row with a Wednesday afternoon victory in Texas. Kyle Lohse, at risk of losing his spot in the rotation, desperately needed a good start today. He wasn’t spectacular, but was able to avoid damage. He gave up 1 run in 6 innings and picked up his second win of the season. He gave up 6 hits and walked 4 batters in the game.

With a lineup including Lew Ford, Nick Punto, Tony Batista and Juan Castro nobody expected the Twins to have anywhere near the run production of Tuesday night’s game. Those expectations were accurate. The Twins scored their first run of the game in the 4th on a Torii Hunter GIDP that scored Lew Ford from 3rd. That tied the game at 1 where it would stay until the 7th.

Texas starter Vicente Padilla was strong through 6, but absolutely collapsed in the 7th, virtually handing the Twins the lead. The inning started off with walks to Hunter and Cuddyer. Then Padilla hit Morneau to load the bases and followed that up by hitting Redmond to force in the go-ahead run. That was the end of Padilla’s day, but the Twins added one more run when Batista grounded into a double play with no outs and bases loaded. In the 8th Torii Hunter added what would become a huge insurance run with a single that scored Punto.

Jesse Crain pitched a scoreless 7th, but Rincon ran into trouble in the 8th. Rincon gave up a walk and 2 hits, including a double, before finally retiring Gary Matthews Jr. with a runner at 3rd and lead reduced to 1. Joe Nathan was perfect in the 9th as he picked up his fifth save of the season.

Game Notes

• Kyle Lohse wasn’t too convincing, but hey may have done well enough to save his job for at least one more turn in the rotation.
• The Twins scored 4 runs on just 6 hits in the game. The 4 walks were the big difference in the game.
• Mauer was the DH today while Redmond caught.

Looking Ahead

The Twins will have an off day on Thursday and then host the Chicago White Sox at the dome for a 4 game Series. The Sox have been the best team in baseball so far this season and we all remember that they swept us in Chicago in mid-April. Nothing would be better than winning 3 of 4, but I’ll still be elated with a split. The Twins have caught a break in that Jose Contreras was placed on the 15-day DL by the White Sox with back trouble. The expected matchups are:

• Baker vs. Vasquez
• Santana vs. Buerhle
• Radke vs. Garcia
• Silva vs. Charlie Haeger (Contreras’ replacement)