Kansas City Topic Page

The Twins enter the series at Cleveland with a 7-9 record, which puts them just 1.5 games behind Chicago, Detroit and Kansas City for the division lead. Cleveland is just a game behind the Twins. The Twins are fortunate to have the record they have, considering they've played much worse than that in terms of runs scored (66) vs. runs allowed (97).

The pitching matchups for the weekend:

Friday: Nick Blackburn, RHP (0-1, 5.71) vs. __Fausto Carmona, RPH (1-2, 7.88) Saturday: Kevin Slowey, RHP (2-0, 5.89) vs. Carl Pavano, RHP (0-2, 9.69) Sunday: Glen Perkins, LHP (1-1, 1.50) vs. Aaron Laffey, LHP (1-0, 2.19)

The Twins finished off their sweep of the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday with another stellar outing from Glen Perkins. The win moved them to 7-7 and just a game back of the trio of leaders in the division; Kansas City, Detroit and Chicago are all 7-5.

Glen Perkins needed just 84 pitches to complete 8 innings for the 3rd time in 3 starts. He gave way to Joe Nathan in the 9th. Two consecutive good starts combined with an off day on Monday will lead to a well rested bullpen when the Twins open a 2-game series in Boston.

The temperature started out in the low 40s and by game's end it was into the 30s. The cold, however, didn't stop the Twins from having their best offensive game of the season. The Twins scored two runs early before expanding their lead with five runs in the third inning. A Carlos Gomez 2 run double capped off the inning that also included 5 singles and a walk.

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.

Carlos Silva's ineffectiveness on Wednesday night cost the Twins another loss against baseball's worst team. In Silva's final start of the season he saw he ERA jump back over the 6.00 mark. If there's any positive you can take from it, it's that Silva is even more unlikely to win a spot in the postseason rotation. He shouldn't even make the roster. Kansas City has been a much tougher opponent for the Twins than they should've been this year. The Twins have just an 11-7 record against the .373 Royals.

The eleven game winning streak came to an end Tuesday night in Kansas City. Boof Bonser struggled with his command and gave up 4 runs in the third inning before being replaced in the fourth by Kyle Lohse. Lew Ford's 2-run homer provided the only runs for the Twins as just about every rally the Twins got started was killed by a double play. The Twins hit into three double plays in the loss.

Radke has his best start since his April start against Kansas City and the Twins went into the bottom of the 8th with a 3-2 lead which is almost always safe considering they have Rincon and Nathan to finish close out the game. Poor defense cost the Twins the game though. In the eighth inning Juan Rincon got 2 quick outs, but then walked Jose Molina. Adam Kennedy then grounded to Juan Castro who's throw couldn't be handled by Justin Morneau. No error was given, but it was a play that Morneau should've made. Following that play Luis Castillo had a ball hit off his glove which tied the game.

I didn't watch this game, and I'm happy about that. The Twins were unable to score a run against the worst team in baseball and they allowed Kansas City its first road win of the season. The only bright side of the night was that Carlos Silva finally didn't get rocked, however, that may have had more to do with the offense he was pitching against.

In the fourth week of the season the Twins had a record of 2-4, winning both games against the struggling Kansas City Royals. The Detroit Series over the weekend can only be described as embarrassing. We didn't have any great performances to speak of from the Detroit series, but we do have a couple worth mentioning from Kansas City.

The Twins ended their 4 game skid by sneaking past the Royals in a wet Tuesday night game in Kansas City. The Win brought the Twins record to 8-11 and became the 8th come-from-behind win of the season for the Twins.