Victor Martinez Topic Page

Three low scoring affairs ended in a series victory for the Twins against Central division rival Cleveland Indians. On Friday night the Twins were shut out while Francisco Liriano struggled again in his second start of the season. Liriano allowed "only" 3 runs through 5 complete innings, but it could've been worse. He gave up 4 hits, walked 5 and struck out just 3. Rick Anderson and Ron Gardenhire have raved about his last two bullpen sessions, but when he goes out and struggles to find his location for 5 innings, it's hard to fully believe what they see.

-- It was definitely one of the better All-Star games in recent memory. Jose Reyes lived up to his billing as one of the most exciting players in baseball, A-Rod was thrown out at home Scotty Ulger style, Ichiro hit the first inside the park home run of All-Star game history and the NL made things interesting in the ninth against two of the AL's best closers this year. And also, FOX made complete asses of themselves throughout coverage of the game. Example 1 - Example 2 - Example 3.

Johan Santana had his best start of the season with 2 back-to-back homers in the seventh inning by Victor Martinez and Ryan Garko being his only flaw. Besides the homeruns, Santana allowed just 3 baserunners and struck out a season-high 11 batters through 7 innings. It also marked his 100th straight start that he went at least five innings which is a truly amazing feat. In the past 50 years only 3 other pitchers have had longer streaks:

The Twins offense is now officially in a slump. They haven't managed to exceed three runs scored in the past three games, all three of which came against poor to average pitchers. On Tuesday night the Twins dropped the second game of the 2 game series against Cleveland despite the fact that they had ace Johan Santana on the mind. The Twins rely heavily on the guys in the middle of the lineup, mainly Justin Morneau and Michael Cuddyer. Over the past three games the two have combined to go 4 for 24 with just 2 RBIs. This isn't meant as a knock on Morneau and Cuddyer--everyone is entitled to a slump from time-to-time, it's meant to indicate that with guys like Jason Tyner, Nick Punto, Jason Bartlett and Alexi Casilla batting at the ends of the lineup, the offensive relies almost exclusively on the RBI production of Cuddyer, Morneau and Torii Hunter behind Joe Mauer, who is always on base.

The Twins went into extra inning for the first time of the season on Monday night against Cleveland. Carlos Silva held Cleveland scoreless until the fifth, but he managed to rack up a high pitch count before that point. Early in the game Silva was pulling the same stunts as his past three starts--he was stranding base runners. Things finally caught up to him when Victor Martinez came to bat with 2 outs and 2 on in the fifth inning. He hit a no-doubter to give the Indians a 3-run lead. Silva completed five and allowed 7 hits and 2 walks. He did strike out 6.

The Twins will open up a short two game series against the Cleveland Indians on Monday night at the dome. The Twins will be fortunate enough to miss C.C. Sabathia by one day and they'll have Johan Santana going for them on Tuesday.