Jason Kubel Topic Page

The Twins returned to Minneapolis after their 20-1 blowout of the White Sox and handily swept the Milwaukee Brewers in the first weekend of interleague play. The streak of wins was thanks to a combination of good starting pitching and a pretty dangerous offensive lineup.

Ron Gardenhire moved Joe Mauer to the #2 spot, which makes for a typical middle of the lineup of Mauer, Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer and Joe Crede. Considering Denard Span is a quality leadoff hitter, it's pretty tough to go 1-6 through this lineup.

Ron Gardenhire gave Jason Kubel his first start of the season in left field on Friday night, and in return Kubel put on the best show of the season and one of the better comebacks I've seen in recent years.

Kubel drove in the first run of the game on a double to the gap that scored Justin Morneau from first base. He singled in the third inning and added a triple and scored what was the tying run in the sixth inning. The real fireworks came in the eighth inning after the Twins had already scored 3 runs to reduce their deficit to 9-7. Justin Morneau was intentionally walked to load the bases with 2 outs. Kubel apparently didn't like that, and made Mike Scioscia pay the price. Kubel launched a ball to the upper deck in right-center to put the Twins up by 2 runs. Kubel's night marked the first time since Kirby Puckett in 1987 that a Twin hit for the cycle at the Metrodome (Carlos Gomez did it in Chicago last season).

I'm a little late for a full recap of Saturday nights game. It was a good one for the Twins bats and Carlos Silva, with his early run support, was able to settle in for a nice seven innings of pitching. The one thing I wanted to take a closer look at was two guys who fans have had mixed feelings about so far this season: Jason Kubel and Jason Bartlett.

The Twins tied the Marlins 4-4 in the eighth, but it came with a huge cost. Scott Ulger initially held up Justin Morneau on a Jason Kubel double to left, but when Josh Willingham had trouble fielding the ball in left he sent Morneau home. The ball beat Morneau and he was forced to collide with Miguel Olivo who was blocking home plate. Olivo missed the ball, Morneau was safe and even Kubel came around to tie the game. Morneau was slow to get up though and came out of the game after that inning.

For a 15-7 loss, there's still some positive things that can be taken from the game. For the second straight game, the Twins offense was able to put some runs on the board. Michael Cuddyer gave the Twins an early lead with a 2-run homer in the first. The Twins had 3 other home runs--2 from Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel's first. The problem on Tuesday night was Twins pitching.

Thursday night's game against the Tampa Bay Devil Rays was a low scoring affair that didn't feature many highlights until the ninth inning. Carlos Silva looked like his old self again. He gave up a lot of hits, but they were scattered and he left a lot of runners on base. He nearly gave up a homerun in the third inning, but it was caught by Jason Kubel right against the wall. Other than that he got a good mix of ground balls and managed to go 6 2/3 innings without allowing a run.

The Twins picked up 10 hits in the Tuesday's game, but 7 of them came from two batters—Mauer and Kubel. Let's start out with the postitives. In the 5th inning the Twins scored their first run. Jason Kubel singled and Joe Mauer doubled to drive him in. That was the only run until the 8th when Jason Kubel hit a solo homer.

With Shannon Stewart due to come off the DL in the next week, a decision is going to have to be made as to who will go down. Jason Kubel was called up to fill Stewart's roster spot, so an obvious option would be to send him back to Rochester, but is that the best decision?

After the worst start to a season of his career, Brad Radke has put together two pretty good outings and the Twins have still lost both of them. Baseball is a funny game; for two months we cursed about how the starting pitching has let us down. Now we've entered June and seen three good starts but have only managed three combined runs in those games. The worse thing though, is that we're losing games that we should be winning. Errors and situational blunders have piled up this season and have played a partial role in the lack of success in the win column.

With a couple weeks to go until the season begins the right field position is still a little up in the air. Surely, a number of players will see some playing time out there all season, but Lew Ford or Michael Cuddyer will probably see most of the playing time there, at least early on in the season. It's uncertain if Jason Kubel will be on the opening day roster let alone, starting.