Let’s hope we get the “good Brian” tonight against the Rangers. It would really be nice to get back to the days when a starting pitcher gave us 6-7 decent innings. It wasn’t really THAT long ago, was it? Just seems like forever.
Rumors continued to swirl today about a possible Denard Span trade to the Nationals for a handful of magic beans (or something of approximately the same value). I have to say that if Bill Smith makes a deal even remotely similar to what’s being bounced around Twitterworld, I’ll be totally on board with everyone who wants to call for his dismissal. It’s almost like he’s telling us, “so you think that deal I made with the Nationals last year was terribly one-sided in favor of Washington? Let me show you how much worse I can let them rip me off!”
Ah well… the Tigers and Indians both lost this afternoon (in fact the Toons got no-hit by the Angels), so without even playing a game, the Twins managed to gain half a game in the standings on both teams. This has me thinking the Twins should just take the next 14 days off… maybe they’ll find themselves tied for first place by mid-August.
Here’s tonight’s lineup:
| TWINS |
@ |
RANGERS |
| Revere, CF | Kinsler, 2B | |
| Casilla, A, 2B | Andrus, SS | |
| Mauer, C | Hamilton, LF | |
| Cuddyer, 1B | Young, M, 3B | |
| Kubel, RF | Cruz, N, RF | |
| Thome, DH | Napoli, 1B | |
| Valencia, 3B | Moreland, DH | |
| Young, D, LF | Torrealba, C | |
| Nishioka, SS | Chavez, En, CF | |
| _Duensing, P | _Lewis, C, P |
| Minnesota | ||||||||||||
| Texas |
Well that’s the kind of game we were all wanting to see!
Five different guys with multiple hits, including three from Jason Kubel! Lexi had two doubles (although he did pull up lame on the last one and it sounds like he’ll miss some time with a hamstring issue… dammit) and we got another HR from Cuddy. And yes, finally, the Chairman yanked his first HR of the season in the first inning to start the scoring. The bullpen also did another nice job.
But the star of the game was Brian Duensing. The Twins got exactly what they needed from him. He went 6.2 innings, scattering 7 hits and giving up just one run. He walked just one while striking out 6. That badly needed quality start earns Brian our BOD award!
