Jason Tyner Topic Page

The Twins are 7-8 since the All-Star break and in their 7 wins they've outscored their opponent by an average of just 2 runs. In all wins they didn't allow the opponent to score more than five runs, so it's been pretty all pitching in those games.

The Devil Rays completely gave this game to the Twins with an inning of the worst defense I may have ever seen at the major league level. After the Twins produced a couple runs in the first, they piled it on in the second with four more. Here's how it went:

The Twins offense is now officially in a slump. They haven't managed to exceed three runs scored in the past three games, all three of which came against poor to average pitchers. On Tuesday night the Twins dropped the second game of the 2 game series against Cleveland despite the fact that they had ace Johan Santana on the mind. The Twins rely heavily on the guys in the middle of the lineup, mainly Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer. Over the past three games the two have combined to go 4 for 24 with just 2 RBIs. This isn't meant as a knock on Morneau and Cuddyer--everyone is entitled to a slump from time-to-time, it's meant to indicate that with guys like Jason Tyner, Nick Punto, Jason Bartlett and Alexi Casilla batting at the ends of the lineup, the offensive relies almost exclusively on the RBI production of Cuddyer, Morneau and Torii Hunter behind Joe Mauer, who is always on base.

It was an interesting game for the Twins. The Felix Hernandez hype was short-lived as he left the game early with soreness in his elbow. Hopefully it's not serious, but the whole event was eerily similar to Fransisco Liriano's departure of last season. The game also featured a crazy ending thanks to a little too aggressive base running from the Mariners.

Before the game it was safe to assume that it would be a high scoring affair with two not so great pitchers, Jeff Weaver and Ramon Ortiz, faced off against each other. Ortiz got through the game without much damage, but Weaver was absolutely terrible. Weaver actually cut his 31.50 ERA in half with the 7 runs in 6 innings, but a 15.75 ERA still sucks.

The resurgence of Brad Radke continues to impress me. Early in the season Radke was terrible, and we later discovered that he was indeed pitching with pain in his throwing shoulder. He's continued to battle through the pain all season and has been an effective pitcher over the past couple months. On Sunday Radke came up with another great outing against one of the league's best offenses and avoided a four-game sweep by the Blue Jays.

Sunday's game was a tough one to watch. I can't remember a time in recent history when Johan appeared to be laboring so much for an entire outing. He gave up 9 hits and 4 walks in 5 1/3 innings, but amazingly still only gave up 3 runs. The month of July has not been a good one for Johan, by his standards anyway. He has a 3-1 record, but it's his 4.74 ERA that's unusual. I'm not worried though.

The Twins got off to a slow start on Monday night in Chicago. Despite having baserunners in scoring position in the 3rd and 4th innings, Javier Vasquez managed to hold the Twins scoreless through five innings. In the meantime Brad Radke had given up a homerun in each of the 4th and 5th innings. However, they were both solo homers, so the damage was minimal. The Twins matched the White Sox in power on Monday night; the difference was the Twins had more baserunners on when the balls left the park.

The Twins got news that Torii Hunter would be the third Twin added to the DL in the past few days. An MRI found that Hunter had a fracture in his foot. Rondell White rejoined the roster today to replace Shannon Stewart and Nick Punto again found himself in the unfamiliar territory of center field on Sunday. Carlos Silva put together a fair start and the Twins managed to take the series 3 game to 1. The victory was most impressive considering the Twins did it with a team that resembled their AAA affiliate Rochester Redwings. On April 4th the following players were in AAA:

Jason Tyner joined the Twins on Friday night from AAA Rochester after Lew Ford was placed on the DL with a strained oblique muscle. The 29 year old Tyner didn't waste any time in making a positive impact. On a night of stranded baserunners, Tyner provided two RBI singles—one of which was a walk-off hit in the 10th.