Jim Leyland Topic Page

Johan Santana wasn't at his best on Sunday against Detroit and him and Mike Maroth dueled in a game that was close all day long. Pitch count ultimately got the best of Santana and he was forced to leave after throwing 114 pitches through six innings. Home runs got the best of Santana; the two he allowed accounted for all three of the runs he allowed.

After the first inning of Saturday afternoon's game in Detroit, things couldn't have gone much smoother. After a good game Friday night, it looked like the Twins had reverted to their old ways. Jason Tyner and Nick Punto singled to start off the game only to have Punto get picked off at first and then have the inning ended on ground outs from Joe Mauer and Michael Cuddyer. In the Bottom of the inning, Carlos Silva allowed two singles, a double and a triple, but escaped with only 2 runs allowed.

It's pretty impressive that the Twins have people in the running for virtually every big award this season. Two of them are official or very probable:

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.