Craig Monroe Topic Page

It's hard to believe, but Sunday night's game was the first multi-homer game for the Twins of the season. Not by one player, but for the whole team. In fact, the Twins had 3 homers. Craig Monroe had a 3-run shot in the second inning and then what proved to be a game winning solo homer in the seventh.

Boof Bonser put together another start worthy of a win, but his offense again failed to provide decent run support. The offense was shut out by Chad Guadin in a close 3-0 game. In Boof's 5 starts this season he's been given a total of 7 runs by his offense. Over that span he's really had only 1 bad start.

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.

For the second straight night the bullpen gave up a late Twins' lead. Three runs in the eighth inning were enough to put Detroit on top and hold off a small ninth inning rally from the Twins. The Tigers swept the 2 game series and doubled their win total on the season. At 4-10, they're not just 2 games behind the 6-8 Twins.

The Twins played their 4th 1-run game of the young season, this time barely coming out on top against the Kansas City Royals. The loss was the first of the season for Kansas City, who had opened their season with a 3-game sweep of Detroit.

With the exception of the cruddy weather outside, you can't really ask for a much better opening day if you're the Twins. Livan Hernandez pitched well enough that 3 runs were all the Twins needed to win. He allowed 2 runs on 7 hits and 0 walks through 7 IP. With a pitch count only in the eighties, I was surprised not to see him sent out for the eighth. Perhaps, if the there had been a little more padding on the lead, Gardy would've given him another inning.

John Walsh posted analysis of the best outfield arms of 2007 over at The Hardball Times. The entire piece is worth the read, but I just wanted to point out the Twins that appeared on the lists.

The Twins signed their second former Houston Astro infielder of week, offering Mike Lamb a 2-year deal worth $6.6 million with a club option for 2010. Lamb has not surpassed 400 AB since his rookie season of 2000 with the Texas Rangers. He spent his years in Houston playing behind third baseman Morgan Ensberg.

Most Twins fans can remember the series in Detroit on the last weekend of April last year. The Twins lost 9-0, 18-1 and 6-0. It was, without doubt, the lowest point of last season.

The Twins have lost two straight games to a team they should beat. There's still a month left in the season, but if the race comes down to the final days of the season, they might be able to look back at two games that slipped away, despite pretty good pitching performances from Matt Garza and Boof Bonser. For a while it looked like Wednesday was going to shape up to be a good day for the Twins. Detroit was losing its second game in New York, the White Sox were losing, and the Twins were leading the Royals 2-0. That all changed abruptly.