Francisco Liriano certainly didn’t have his best stuff last night, failing to get out of the 3rd inning and putting the Twins behind. Liriano now has three terrible starts for the Twins in 2012, coming off a poor 2011 campaign, and if the Twins had anybody left at AAA to take his spot in the rotation, Liriano could be in trouble of losing his spot with the Major League club.
Morneau is back in the lineup today, after a day off. He is not back at first, but he’s in the lineup, and so far reports are that everything went as planned on Monday with Morneau playing the field, so expect his playing time to increase. Also of note: Ryan Doumit is getting the day off in favor of the hot hitting Clete Thomas.
| Minnesota |
@ |
NY Yankees |
| Span, CF | Jeter, SS | |
| Carroll, SS | Granderson, CF | |
| Mauer, C | Teixeira, 1B | |
| Willingham, LF | Cano, 2B | |
| Morneau, DH | Swisher, DH | |
| Parmelee, 1B | Ibanez, RF | |
| Burroughs, 3B | Chavez, Er, 3B | |
| Thomas, C, RF | Martin, C | |
| Casilla, A, 2B | Gardner, LF | |
| _ Marquis, P | _ Kuroda, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Minnesota | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 13 | 0 |
| NY Yankees | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 11 | 0 |
BIG win for the Twins tonight! Once again, the guys jumped on the Yankee starting pitcher for runs in the first inning and once again the Twins pitcher gave a chunk of that lead right back. But, like Carl Pavano on Monday, Jason Marquis settled in and gave his team a chance to win.
A big sack of baked goods goes to the Twins’ bullpen as Brian Duensing and Jared Burton combined to throw three shutout innings of relief and Matt Capps survived a ninth inning Derek Jeter HR to nail down the save.
Plenty of hitting from the Twins tonight, as well, with eight different hitters contributing a total of 13 hits. Chris Parmelee notched two of them and Alexi Casilla continued to warm up at the plate with three hits of his own. Josh Willingham managed to stretch his hitting streak to 12 straight games to open the season with a ninth inning double.
But the Boyfriend of the Day award can go to nobody but Justin Morneau. Doc proved he doesn’t have to be playing 1B to hit well in Yankee Stadium, as the DH hit not one, but two more home runs!
It may be hard to believe, but the Twins will be going for a series win on Thursday night in Yankee Stadium. – JC
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