Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Topic Page

Despite the Twins' success in this decade, they haven't posted a winning record against the Angels since 2003 when they went 5-4, so what seemed like a difficult way to open the season, has actually gone pretty well. By winning on Tuesday night, the Twins guarantee at least a split in the 4-game series. The Twins swept the Angels in their first series last season, but then went 1-6 against them the rest of the way; the sweep came at the Metrodome.

Justin Morneau and J.J. Hardy each hit their second home run of the season, but the Twins again failed to take advantage of many scoring opportunities throughout the game. Fortunately, Carl Pavano was dealing quite well and 4 runs proved to be enough for the win.

Jim Thome got his first start at DH, leaving Jason Kubel to ride the bench against righty Ervin Santana. Thome was 0-4 with 3 strikeouts, which didn't do much to support an already easy-to-criticize decision by Ron Gardenhire.

The Twins followed up Friday night's improbable, Jason Kubel induced, comeback win with a solid victory on Saturday night. Big innings in the fifth and sixth helped the Twins to a 9-2 victory--their biggest win of the season. The win locked up a series victory against the Los Angeles Angels for the team's first series win of the season.

Kevin Slowey rebounded nicely from a shaky start to the season. After allowing 5 runs in each of his first two starts, Slowey held the Angels to just 2 runs through 7 strong innings. The long ball has been Slowey's achilles heel this year, and Torii Hunter's 2-run shot in the second inning was all the scoring the Angels would do.

The Twins' first series of the season ended up in a 1 game to 3 loss to the Angels. The series involved 3 low-scoring 1-run games and the 9-1 blowout win by the Angels on Tuesday night.

Just about everything went right on opening day. In game two, just about nothing went right as the Twins fell to the Angels by a score of 9-1. Boof Bonser labored to get through six innings. It could've been worse—Boof left 3 runners stranded in scoring position.

Coming into this series I really thought the Twins had a legitimate shot at a sweep. Not only were they playing one of the worst teams in baseball, but they were facing three starting pitches who were barely holding onto jobs at the big-league level. Now they've lost 2 straight and will be playing Sunday to avoid getting swept themselves.

Week 9 comprised of the first 7 games of a 10 game road trip out West for the Twins. The week, as a whole, can best be described as underachieving. Ron Gardenhire himself had the following to say in his Sunday morning interview with Sid Hartman:

Boof was hurt by the 3 homeruns he gave up in the game, but overall he pitched pretty well. He gave up just 2 other hits and didn't walk any batters. Zito, however, shut down the Twins offense, allowing just 4 hits and no walks.

Scott Baker struggled again on Tuesday night and now stands to possibly become the third pitcher exiled from the Twins rotation this season. The most likely replacement would be Carlos Silva, who was moved out of the rotation a couple weeks ago to work on his stuff. That doesn't exactly give me a lot of confidence, but what other options would we have?

The Twins took another loss and fell below .500 in their opening game against the Angels. Once again, Ron Gardenhire seemed to let his starter go a little longer than he should've. Carlos Silva gave up 2 runs in the 4th, 3 runs in the 5th and then managed to pitch 3 scoreless innings. He was brought out in the 9th inning and gave up 3 more runs. Silva and Gardenhire were both ejected from the game when Gardenhire went out to pull Silva from the game. Silva started things off by yelling at the home plate umpire, Jerry Meals, and after Silva was tossed, Gardenhire got in the face of Meals. This was Gardenhire's first heated argument with of the season and his first ejection of the year. Jesse Crain came on to finish the 9th.

First, I want to say that Rondell White is a quality hitter and his batting average won't stay at .085 for long. That being said, Rondell White should not be the cleanup hitter on this team. The first two weeks have been played and I can't count how many runners White has left out on base. Stewart, Castillo and Mauer have all been very good at the top of the lineup and numerous runs could've been scored if Rondell White had played only half as horrendous as he actually did. I don't think there's a team in baseball that has a guy intentionally walked to get to the cleanup hitter (especially twice in 1 game).