The Twins’ home opener had just about everything you could hope for. Joer Mauer started off with a single and the Twins got on the board in the 2nd inning with back-to-back solo homers from Justin Morneau and Torii Hunter. Johan Santana wasn’t perfect, but he did accomplish something that took him nearly the full month of April last season–he picked up his first win of the season.

The game went about how Gardy would’ve scripted it. The Twins trailed for no longer than a half inning and seemed in control of the game all night. Johan gave six good innings, struggling only in the 4th when he gave up 3 runs. Dennys Reyes, Jesse Crain and Juan Rincon took care of the bullpen duties and Joe Nathan took over in the 9th for his first save of the season.

The Twins offense showed that it’s more than capable of scoring a few runs. The real test will come in the next few games when the Twins don’t have the luxury of Johan starting, in other words, they’re going to need to score some runs.

Game Notes

• Santana allowed 7 hits and 2 walks through 6 innings (83 pitches).
• The bullpen allowed just 1 hit (but 2 walks) in 3 innings.
• Lots of extra base hits: Homers from Morneau (1) and Hunter (1) as well as doubles from Nick Punto, Hunter and Luis Castillo
• Morneau and Castillo each had 3 hits
• Jeff Cirillo, who was the DH against lefty Bedard, drove in his first RBI as a Twin with a go-ahead single in the 5th inning.
• Not only did Rondell White take a rare walk in the game, but he also made an impressive diving catch along the left field foul line to save an extra base hit late in the game.

Around the Division

• Detroit lost to Toronto by a score of 5-3
• Cleveland pounded Jose Contreras and the White Sox by a score of 12-5
• Kansas City won handily against the Red Sox by a score of 7-1

Maybe the Twins have decided it might be nice to take the division lead earlier than October 1st.

Other thoughts

• While it’s hard to argue with Gardenhire’s decision to go with Cirillo as the DH against the lefty, I hope he’ll get Kubel some at-bats against lefties this season. Besides his bum knees, the lack of consistent at-bats has surely been a big part of Kubel’s problems. I’m really excited about the possibility of Kubel becoming a productive, everyday DH.

Win Probability (WPA Graphs)

Will Young has been posting WPA graphs for a couple years now, but this year there’s a cool new site that offers real-time WPA graphs of all the MLB games. I’m not sure if I’ll post them everyday, but I wanted to at least show off the site. It’s definitely a cool way to see the ups and downs of a game and pick out the difference makers.

For this game Morneau leads the way with a WPA of .284.