The Twins couldn’t muster the offense needed against Roy Halladay and B.J. Ryan in the season opener. Santana clearly wasn’t in midseason form as he seemed to hit a wall in the 6th inning. The Twins hit two homeruns (Batista and Stewart) but couldn’t get enough baserunners to put runs on the board.

Rincon looked pretty good in his debut, despite missing most of spring training recovering from elbow surgery.

Castillo, Mauer, White, Hunter, Morneau and Kubel were all hitless. Shannon Stewart was 3 for 4 with two runs scored.

Game Commentary

Top 1st

White hit a deep sac fly to center scoring Stewart. Run was unearned due to an Overbay error allowing Mauer to reach.

Bottom of 3rd

Santana works out of trouble after walking the Blue Jays’ number nine hitter, Russ Adams, and nearly giving up a homerun to Alex Rios. Santana struck out Wells to end the inning.

A pitchers’ duel, as expected, is starting to take shape. Overbay’s error in the 1st could prove to be decisive.

Top 4th

After Mauer made it to second on an error by Russ Adams, White and Hunter failed to move him over. Morneau struck out to end the inning. The Twins need to take advantage of situations like this if they want to be successful.

Bottom 4th

The Blue Jay’s bats come alive with nice hitting from Glaus and Overbay, and a 2-run homerun from Molina.

Gardy has his first argument with an umpire, claiming that Adams turned the corner at 1st toward 2nd. Adams reached on a Castillo error.

Bottom 6th

After giving up singles to the leadoff batters, Hillenbrand and Molina, Santana gets a 5-4-3 double play. Adams knocked a hit past Batista at 3rd to score Hillenbrand.

Santana clearly lost his stuff at about the 80 pitch count. That’s to be expected when he only goes 4 innings (and 77 pitches) in his final start of the spring. Rincon came in and gave up 1 hit before striking out Wells with bases loaded.

The Twins need to get their bats going!

Top 7th

Batista does what he was brought in to do, hit a homerun. Unfortunately, there were no runners on base.

Top 8th

Stewart hits a solo shot to bring the Twins within 1 run. He’s 3-4 today.

Bottom 8th

Alex Rios hit a 2-run homer off Jesse Crain with 2 outs to put the Jays up 6-3. Rios is 3-4 on the day.