Ramon Hernandez Topic Page

It's opening day! In case you're not a weekend reader (which is common), please be sure to check out the two posts I made over the weekend discussing the hitters and pitchers on the Twins opening day roster. This year I want to start previewing each series, so here's the preview of the opening series at home against the Baltimore Orioles.

The Twins offense had been lackluster in the run department the past few games, but it returned to form against the Orioles on Thursday night. Michael Cuddyer was 4-4 with 4 RBI, Joe Mauer was 3-4 with 4 RBI and Justin Morneau hit his 32nd homer of the season. Torii Hunter also hit his 4th homerun in the last six games to push his season total to 19. It was the 3,4,5 and 6 hitters that provided all of the Twins' 11 RBI in the game—something I wouldn't mind seeing a lot of in the final month of the season.

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.

The Twins found themselves down 8-0 heading into the bottom of the 7th inning. Carlos Silva struggled in the first inning by giving up 3 runs, including a 2-run homer to Miguel Tejada. Silva then pitched 3 scoreless innings before allowing Baltimore to extend the lead by a run in each of the fifth and 6th innings. The recently recalled Kyle Lohse came on for the 7th and looked terrible.