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I was in attendance at Tuesday night's game against the Orioles and while there wasn't a great deal of excitement from the bats, it was a good, close game to watch. Boof Bonser pitched well, only running into some trouble in the third inning. He left the game after 6 innings in a 2-2 tie and allowed just 3 hits (and 3 walks).

It's opening day! In case you're not a weekend reader (which is common), please be sure to check out the two posts I made over the weekend discussing the hitters and pitchers on the Twins opening day roster. This year I want to start previewing each series, so here's the preview of the opening series at home against the Baltimore Orioles.

With just a week to go until the start of the season on April 2nd, Sidney Ponson had his best start of the spring against his former team, the Baltimore Orioles. With 2 pretty bad outings and 2 pretty good outings this spring, Ponson has seemingly locked up a spot in the Twins' rotation along with Johan Santana, Boof Bonser and Ramon Ortiz. I expect Ponson to fill out the fifth spot of the rotation. Whether Carlos Silva or Matt Garza will get that fourth spot is yet to be determined, but I'd sleep a lot better at night if I knew it was Garza.

The Twins offense had been in a two-week funk that left them playing about .500 ball. They finally seemed to have gotten the offense going again. They've scored 9+ runs in three of the past four games. Nick Punto has 6 hits in the past two games, Joe Mauer is on a 6-game hitting streak, and Michael Cuddyer's 4 RBI on Monday moved his season total to 98. In addition, Carlos Silva put together his second straight good peformance and this time didn't leave early with a tummy ache.

The Twins offense had been lackluster in the run department the past few games, but it returned to form against the Orioles on Thursday night. Michael Cuddyer was 4-4 with 4 RBI, Joe Mauer was 3-4 with 4 RBI and Justin Morneau hit his 32nd homer of the season. Torii Hunter also hit his 4th homerun in the last six games to push his season total to 19. It was the 3,4,5 and 6 hitters that provided all of the Twins' 11 RBI in the game—something I wouldn't mind seeing a lot of in the final month of the season.

In week 10 the Twins lost a series in Seattle and won a home series against Baltimore for a record of 3-3. After a week of no offense, the Twins bats began to show some life by scoring a total of 36 runs through the 6 games. The offense was led by two grand slams from Michael Cuddyer, 3 homers from Justin Morneau and of course the hitting tear that Joe Mauer has been on the past month.

Twins fans haven't had much opportunity to witness how valuable the home run can be at times; on Friday night Justin Morneau gave us a showing of the difference a longball can make. Morneau hit a 3-run homer in the 4th inning to put the Twins in the lead 3-1 and those were the only 3 runs scored in the first 7 innings of the game. Walks and a Tiffee error cost the Twins the lead in the 4th inning, putting the Orioles up 5-3.

Spring Training Game.