Ruben Sierra Topic Page

Jose Contreras has declared himself unable to play in the All-Star game after throwing 117 pitches and getting hit in the elbow on Sunday. This has created room for Francisco Liriano, and at 22 years old Liriano will attend his first All-Star game. A lot of credit should be given to Contreras for opting out and allowing Liriano to get a chance. Tom Glavine did the same thing for the NL and allowed Chris Capuano of the Brewers to make the team.

The last time I saw a team play as poorly as the Cubs did on Sunday was in late May when I walked past a little league game. The Cubs made 3 official errors in the game, but also made a number of mistakes that weren't scored as errors. Balls found their way into holes as Cubs players simply looked at eachother in hopes that the other guy would make the play. The Cubs out-hit the Twins 11-10, but the lopsided 8-1 score showed just how awful the Cubs were. The positive is that the Twins took advantage of the mistakes—something all good teams do.

Francisco Liriano's only troubles came in the 2nd inning when he walked Ian Snell, the Pittsburgh pitcher, and then gave up a 2-run homer to Jack Wilson. Liriano was brilliant through 7 innings as he struck out a career hight 11 batters and became the first Twins pitcher that isn't Johan Sanana to strike out double digits since Eric Milton in 2002.

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.

Inter-division games are the most important games you can play. The Twins have now played a series against every time in the Central Division. Here's how they've gone.

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.

Making the lineup card for Saturday night's game wasn't an easy task for Ron Gardenhire. Shannon Stewart is still away with his wife who just gave birth to their first child. Luis Castillo is still hobbled with the knee injury from Thursday's game, and Ruben Sierra is a bit sore from fouling a ball off the ankle. All this meant Rondell White, the usual DH was playing in Left field, Luis Rodgriguez was playing at second, Joe Mauer was the DH, and Mike Redmond was behind the plate.

The Angels gave the Twins every opportunity to win this game, yet it still took 10 innings for the Twins to finally squeeze out a victory in the high scoring affair. Mistakes by the Angels included 2 errors, a balk and 7 walks by Angel pitching.

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).

Jason Bartlett, who had been the leading candidate for the starting shortsop gig all through spring hurt his hamstring yesterday after hitting a double in the 8th. It sounds like it's not too serious, but on the other hand it's best to be cautious with injuries like this at this time in the season. The last thing anyone wants is hamstring bothering them all season. Bartlett had the following to say: