Orlando Cabrera Topic Page

Friday night's game 2 of the ALDS was every bit as disappointing as Tuesday's tie-breaker game was satisfying. For multiple reasons the Twins lost the game by a single run when Mark Texeira hit an 11th inning walk-off home run down the left field line. Prior to that the Twins had a couple opportunities to seal a victory.

In the fourth inning Carlos Gomez was caught off second after a Matt Tolbert single to center. Delmon Young was coming around to score easily, but Gomez was tagged before Young crossed the plate, ending the inning with no runs for the Twins. Gomez had no business rounding second on that play, but even after making that mistake he should have kept going, allowing Young enough time to score.

Less than 24 hours after a spectacular tie-breaker victory against Detroit the Twins have to fly to New York to take on the Yankees, the best team in baseball.

With no other options, they'll send rookie Brian Duensing to the mound for the opening game today. Duensing, of course, was scratched from Sunday's start by Ron Gardenhire, who instead opted to go with Carl Pavano on short rest. Duensing will have to face the 2007 Cy Young winner and 2009 Cy Young Candidate C.C. Sabathia.

Francisco Liriano is becoming one of the pitchers that the Twins can rely on to right the ship when things aren't going well. Wednesday night he had a no-hitter through five innings before Orlando Cabrera reached base on a missed call at first base to break up the no-hitter. Liriano's pitch count was high, so he wouldn't have been able to go more than 6 innings anyway. As good as Liriano was, he's still having some control issues. He walked four batters and had a wild pitch. Now that he's capable of comfortably pitching 100+ pitches it'd be nice if he can become more efficient with his pitch count so he can start to go 7 and 8 innings.

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.