Justin Verlander Topic Page

Justin Verlander tallied 13 strikeouts as he cruised through 6 1/3 innings of scoreless ball on Thursday afternoon. After a Brian Buscher single and a Nick Punto walk, the game was handed over to the Detroit bullpen, who proceeded to blow it all in that one inning.

Jason Kubel delivered a double that, if it hadn't bounced over the OF wall, would have tied the game at five. Instead it left Justin Morneau trapped at 3rd base. Joe Crede, who started off the inning as Verlander's 13th strikeout victim, delivered the game winning 2-RBI single.

The Twins will open a home series against the Detroit Tigers tonight. The Tigers are riding a 3-game win-streak, which has propelled them to the top of the AL Central. The run of wins can be almost entirely attributed to stellar pitching--they shut out Cleveland on Friday and Saturday before allowing just 3 runs to them on Sunday.

The Twins will have to face Justin Verlander, who pitched a Complete Game shutout on Friday, for the last game of the series on Thursday. First, however, they get to face a couple guys who haven't faired as well lately.

If my math is correct, the Braves have a 5 game losing streak in the Dome dating back to October of 1991. The victory on Tuesday night brought the Twins back to the .500 mark at 31-31. Despite not playing particularly well, the Twins have managed to gain 2 games in the past week against the Indians. They now trail both Detroit and Cleveland by what seems like a more reasonable 5.5 games.

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.

Last night's game between the Detroit Tigers finally got back to a level that was bearable to watch, or listen to, as was my case last night. After a stretch of games featuring no clutch hitting, fielding errors and mental mistakes all-around this game was actually well played by both sides. Through the first six innings there was again no sign of Twins' offense, but that all changed in the seventh and eighth.

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.

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:

The Twins extended their season long win streak to 10 games with a Sunday victory over the Brewers. The win also completed the Twins third straight sweep. Francisco Liriano got off to a less than perfect start. He hit Rickie Weeks with a pitch and gave up a single to Jeff Cirillo. While pitching to Corey Hart, he caught a spike in the mound and tripped before delivering a pitch. The balk moved runners to second and third with no outs. Two strikeouts and a groundout got him out of the jam with no runs given up. Liriano was near perfect for the rest of the game—giving up just 3 hits and a walk through 8 shutout innings. Liriano also recorded a career high 12 strikeouts.

On a rare night of great pitching, the Twins still couldn't come up with a win. Last weekend I was starting to think the Twins might have turned a corner, but they now find themselves in another 4 game slide and it's becoming crystal clear that this team simply can't contend with Chicago and Detroit. In one week two fifths of our rotation has changed and 1/3 of our lineup should change as well.