Twins, not Twinkies

Sorry I don’t have much for you today, but the Twins won 11-3 on Saturday and lost 3-4 yesterday after a walk-off homer. The Twins don’t play today to finish April with a winning record.

Mike Redmond and Joe Mauer each had 2 RBI in the 8th to propel the team past the Tigers.

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Torii Hunter got smoked in the face with a pitch and Boof Bonser walked 7 batters, but the Twins endured to end their 4-game losing streak.

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Sidney Ponson can’t be blamed for the loss. He allowed 4 runs through 6 innings, but costly blunders made the Twins lose their 4th straight game.

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Never again will I be so optimistic about our offense. It made me sick watching a guy named Fausto Carmona (not surprisingly, Bert couldn’t pronounce it) pitch 7 and 2/3 innings. At one point, at the start of the 5th, he’d thrown just 51 pitches. This team is impatient and they hack at the ball if it’s over their heads or at their wrists, but when it’s a floater over the middle they don’t seem to hit it beyond the infield and out of the park.

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Jesse Crain and Joe Nathan combined for the loss, although it officially went to Crain. Crain gave up 2 runs in the top of the 12th and Nathan came in to give up 2 that were credited to Jesse. It was a game that saw our bullpen get worked, and puts more pressure on Johan Santana to give us 7 or 8 strong innings tonight.

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I’ll break the post up into two sections since I wasn’t able to do a recap of the second game of the series.

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Our offense actually had a good night, but Sidney Ponson and Glen Perkins had meltdowns in the 5th inning to give the Royals the lead for good.

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Johan Santana was incredibly dominant and the Twins got a much-needed big inning while Johan was still pitching. (more…)

-The Twins started it off with a pretty good first inning, getting two hits and a walk to load the bases. A wild pitch thrown by Felix Hernandez advanced all runners and Michael Cuddyer grounded out to second, scoring another run. To add insult to injury (literally), Felix didn’t get a chance to stay in the game due to soreness in his right elbow. He might’ve had a chance to stay in long enough to give his team a chance, but he only pitched 1/3 of an inning.

-Carlos Silva didn’t pitch too bad, it seems like he made just one mistake, but it was one of those “wow if I didn’t make that mistake we would’ve won the game” type of mistakes; giving up a 3-run homer to Richie Sexson in the 6th.

-Joe Nathan came in to pitch the 9th, but was shaky to say the least. He started off by giving up a single, getting a groundout with the batter going to 1st, getting a pop out, and then giving up a single to SS Jason Bartlett. The next batter ripped one past Justin Morneau and into right field. The first runner scored, and Cuddyer must have been charging a little too hard because he fumbled with the ball and allowed the runner from first to start chugging home. Luckily for us, ‘ol Mike has an extendable arm, to generate more power (literally, he does. See for yourself.) He gunned out the runner by 2-3 steps. Plus, I can’t be told that Red Dog (Mike Redmond) isn’t an intimidating force at the plate. Just look at him.

-I’m not sure that I’ve mentioned it but Nick Punto does not need to go on the DL and is listed as day-to-day. I’d expect him to return in the Kansas City series.

-JohanK (pronounced Yo-hanK) Santana is pitching for us tonight, this time at 5:30. I had originally said 9:10 but have since seen that it’s 5:30. Thanks for pointing that out.

-Chicago White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle threw a no-hitter last night, against the Texas Rangers. He was one walk away from a perfect game. He isn’t the first guy to come in my mind when I think of active pitchers throwing a no-hitter, but it’s still a great day for him.