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The Twins managed a 2-1 series victory over the Cleveland Indians with a blowout 11-3 victory on Thursday afternoon.

The most encouraging aspect of the victory was Scott Baker's performance. While he's certainly had some good starts through the season, he's had more poor ones. On Thursday he managed to hold a decent Cleveland offense to just 2 runs over 7 innings while striking out a career-high 10 batters. He walked just 1 and allowed scattered 6 hits.

The Cleveland Indians entered the weekend series with the 3rd highest scoring offense in baseball. The Twins entered the series having allowed the 5th most runs in baseball. So far through two games, things have gone exactly opposite of what those numbers indicate.

The Twins have held the Indians to just 1 run in each of the last two games while taking advantage of poor pitching from Fausto Carmona and Carl Pavano. Kevin Slowey nearly pitched a complete game shutout, but ran into trouble in the ninth on Saturday and had to be bailed out by Luis Ayala. Nick Blackburn turned in his best start of the season, allowing just a run in 7 innings.

Before the season starts I have to get my predictions set in stone, so people can point and laugh at me at the end of the season. Please share your picks in the comments.

American League

East: Tampa Bay Rays

Central: Cleveland Indians

West: Los Angeles Angels

Wild Card: New York Yankees

Cy Young: Roy Halladay

MVP: Grady Sizemore

ROY: David Price

Three low scoring affairs ended in a series victory for the Twins against Central division rival Cleveland Indians. On Friday night the Twins were shut out while Francisco Liriano struggled again in his second start of the season. Liriano allowed "only" 3 runs through 5 complete innings, but it could've been worse. He gave up 4 hits, walked 5 and struck out just 3. Rick Anderson and Ron Gardenhire have raved about his last two bullpen sessions, but when he goes out and struggles to find his location for 5 innings, it's hard to fully believe what they see.

The Twins have ridded themselves of one problem in Sidney Ponson, but there are still many more. Joe Mauer is still out for at least another week and despite Sunday's breakout performance, the offense has struggled to produce runs as the Twins have lost 4 straight series. To make matters worse they'll take on the 21-14 Indians who are 11-3 at their combined homes (They played a series in Milwaukee).

The Twins will open up a short two game series against the Cleveland Indians on Monday night at the dome. The Twins will be fortunate enough to miss C.C. Sabathia by one day and they'll have Johan Santana going for them on Tuesday.

For the second straight night the Twins put together an eighth inning rally to beat the Cleveland Indians. Just as important, the Kansas City Royals were once again able to defeat the White Sox which allowed the Twins to move to within 1 game of the White Sox. Detroit also lost, to Boston, which moved the Twins to within 7.5 games of the AL Central lead. Boston is just 1 game behind the Twins.

The Twins pitching struggles continued today against the Cleveland Indians. Every time the Twins put some runs on the board, Cleveland would answer in the bottom of the inning with runs of their own.

The Twins dropped the final game of the series with the Blue Jays. The game recap can be seen in the scoreboard area.

In Baseball, you'd rather be playing well in the month of September than in April, so you have some momentum going into the playoffs. However, when it comes to making the playoffs, April games count just as much as those in September. The first few weeks of the Twins' season could prove to be pretty important when it comes to how the season is going to turn out. Let's take a look at the tough matchups they'll be facing right away.