Carlos Marmol Topic Page

The Twins continue to roll right along as they took Friday night's series opener against the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs sent out unproven starter Carlos Marmol who didn't have good command of his pitches. He fell behind in the count often and the Twins took advantage of it by scoring 7 runs in Marmol's 5 2/3 innings. Michael Cuddyer and Justin Morneau provided plenty of run production from the middle of the lineup and Johan Santana was his usual self—limiting Chicago to just 1 earned run in 8 innings.

Roger Clemens was the talk of baseball coming into his Thursday night season debut against the Twins. However, once the game started Francisco Liriano became the true star of the game. Roger Clemens struggled with his pitch count—he left the game after 5 innings with 100 pitches. The Twins managed 2 runs in the second off Clemens, and that was all he gave up. In total, he allowed 6 hits and 2 walks in the five innings he pitched. While Clemens was pretty good for a first start of the season, Liriano was better.