GameChat – Twins @ Tigers #2, 12:05pm, 1500espn & MLB.tv only

[edit] I LIED! The calendar doesn’t have this broadcast listed for FSN but it seems to be on the FSN list!! woohoo!

photo courtesy of Jim Mone/ASSOCIATED PRESS

First of all, I feel it’s utterly appropriate to recognize that a year ago, today, we lost Harmon Killebrew. For the Twins fans and team, this was a HUGE loss. I think we are continuing to feel his absence both up in MN and in the minor leagues where he had such an impact on young players. You’ll always be missed Killer.

 

 

 

 

On to the game: today’s pre-game roster moves are not what anyone was actually expecting. After last night’s odd victory (both in on-field activity and record), we had some odd announcements. We expected to see Doumit moved to the DL after popping a calf muscle during the game and having Butera replace him defensively in the 8th. Turns out, he had an MRI and it was all good news! Doumit is day-to-day but could be available to DH very soon. Of course that means he joins the ranks of the bench-injured – a growing club with this team that includes Span and apparently Capps as well. In a rare move, the Twins actually did place someone on the DL – Nick Blackburn – with a strained left quad. That does explain the horrible 2 inning outing. However, the team brought up Ben Revere to take the open spot on the roster…  color me a tad confused. I’m sure the decision regarding Revere was made when the team assumed they were losing Doumit for awhile. But I certainly didn’t expect to see the team go to 12 pitchers the day after we used the entire available bullpen to win a game. I think that we have a lot of pressure on Walters today.. let’s see what happens.

Minnesota

@

Detroit
Revere, CF Kelly, CF
Dozier, SS Dirks, LF
Mauer, 1B Cabrera, Mi, 3B
Willingham, LF Fielder, 1B
Morneau, DH Young, D, DH
Plouffe, RF Avila, C
Casilla, A, 2B Boesch, RF
Butera, C Peralta, Jh, SS
Carroll, 3B Raburn, 2B
  Walters, P   Fister, P

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

R

H

E

Minnesota

0

0

3

0

1

0

0

0

0

4

10

1

Detroit

0

0

0

0

1

2

0

0

0

3

4

2

The Twins won a SERIES!!! Detroit may lead the division at some point (probable) this season but their defense is going to have to improve for that to happen. BUT if you have the bats, solid defense and miracle of all miracles, a BULLPEN, you can go places!! Justin Morneau got 3 of today’s 4 RBI so I gotta say it’s really good to have him back. And you’ll never guess who leads the team in Batting Average right now.. yes, it’s DREW BUTERA! *dies laughing* Statistically, Drew was 3/4 today but actually got on base all 4 plate appearances due to an error.

But, as I mentioned in the pregame notes, the pressure for today was all on PJ Walters. Since our bullpen had to cover 7 innings last night, there wasn’t a lot of room for anything but a deep outing from our starter today. And while Detroit may do their best circus emulation on the field, they DO bring the big bats to the plate. It’s no easy job to face that lineup inning after inning. So while we offer our heartiest thanks and plates of pastries to Doc & Drew for their stellar efforts today, the BOD goes to the new comer, PJ Walters! Congrats on your first Twins win!

Photo credit: Jim Mone / AP

St. Paul Saints Opening Day!

There is other baseball to watch in the Twin Cities! We are actually a blessed community to have options. So if & when you are frustrated with watching the Twins at points during the season – and even if you’re not! The Saints make a great show of 9 innings in addition to the ballgame. And the Saints actually made it to the playoffs last year.. and took it all the way through Championship only to lose out in the last possible game.. I’m hoping for one game better this year!

 

Since the Season Opener is at home, they have a GREAT week of activities planned for all the fans that show up to enjoy this great May weather. This is all after a fun week of exhibition activities that culminated in the World’s Largest Game of Catch yesterday where the team mascot was introduced to the public.. in case you don’t already know, the Saints pick a little piggy to represent them until roasting time at the end of the season. This year is breaking tradition just a bit! They have Co-Mascots this year.

Introducing Kim LARDashian and Kris HAMphries!

Better news is that their union will actually last longer than their namesakes.. *snort*

There are a LOT of other things going on this week that you would love to be a part of!

Tickets are so affordable, you can bring the whole family!

BTW, in other news from this years legislative discussions regarding stadium funding, the Saints were also at the capitol looking for some funding to move from Midway to a new home base in Lowertown, St. Paul. They certainly don’t have the weight to throw around that the Vikings or Twins do nor are they looking for anything like the amount of money as the big boys.. And the news at this point is that while they did not receive any direct funding, they most likely are eligible to apply for an economic development grant to fulfill their needs. That will take some more time to work out but I’m sure that further announcements will come later.

Until then, as old as it is, Midway is a fun place to watch a baseball game and I hope you all will make an attempt to go out and join the fun!

GameChat – Twins @ Tigers, 6:05 pm

I haven’t seem much of the news today so I have no idea what may or may not have happened with the Twins. I do know Denard Span was scratched from the lineup with a tight hamstring and that Justin Morneau returns at 1B tonight.

I won’t be around much, if at all tonight, but I’m opening up the GameChat. Pray for the best!

TWINS

@

TIGERS
Komatsu, CF   Jackson, A, CF
Dozier, SS   Dirks, LF
Mauer, DH   Cabrera, Mi, 3B
Willingham, LF   Fielder, 1B
Morneau, 1B   Young, D, DH
Doumit, C   Avila, C
Plouffe, RF   Raburn, 2B
Casilla, A, 2B   Boesch, RF
Carroll, 3B   Santiago, SS
  _Blackburn, P     _Porcello, P
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Minnesota 2 3 1 0 0 2 1 0 2 11 14 0
Detroit 1 5 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 7 11 4

Well that was kinda fun!

It’s a good thing that all runs count instead of just “earned” runs or these two teams might still be playing. Before the season started, I recall poking fun at what I expected to be a pretty inept defense that Detroit would be putting on the field. I haven’t watched more than a handful of innings from their season so far, but I’ve been reading and hearing that their defense isn’t as bad as some of us thought it would be. You wouldn’t know that to be the case based on how they booted and tossed the ball around against the Twins tonight.

Regardless of how poorly the Tigers defended, the Twins deserve credit for (a) putting the ball in play, and (b) coming through with some timely hitting, as well. Yes… the Twins… timely hitting! I know… I couldn’t believe it either, but it was happening. In fact, our guys were 6 for 15 with runners in scoring position tonight. Six hits! For that matter, even having 15 ABs with guys in scoring position is pretty remarkable lately!

We’ll skip the discussion of Nick Blackburn’s start… after all, he wasn’t really in the game long enough to worry about it. But the bullpen did a heckuva job again. Jeff Gray, Alex Burnett, Brian Duensing, Jared Burton and Glen Perkins combined for seven innings of 5-hit baseball, giving up just one run.

That was good enough to hold off the Tigers while the Twins bats set about pretty much raking the Tigers’ pitchers. Josh Willingham had three hits (including 2 doubles), while Joe Mauer, Jamey Carroll and Brian Dozier all had two hits apiece. In fact, among the position players who got in the game, only Erik Komatsu failed to get at least one hit (and Komatsu managed to reach on a Tiger error and score a run).

It was a tough decision to come up with just one Boyfriend of the Day, with the entire bullpen proving worthy, as well as probably half a dozen hitters, but in GameChat voting, Brian Dozier’s defense and his critical 3-run home run in the second inning earned him the honor! – JC

Brian Dozier

EDIT: The news apparently wasn’t all good for the Twins after the game. The Strib’s Joe Christensen reports that Ryan Doumit has been placed on the 15-day DL with a strained calf (what… already? What happened to waiting around for a week to decide that kind of thing?). Ben Revere is on his way up to take Doumit’s spot on the active roster.

EDITED EDIT: Thursday morning, the Twins announced that they were a bit premature in declaring Ryan Doumit would be placed on the DL. Instead, they decided Doumit would be day-to-day (sigh) and Nick Blackburn would be the player DL’d, with his strained quad. That drops the pitching staff to 12 as they head in to the weekend’s interleague series with the Brewers. Hopefully, Doumit’s able to contribute in some manner.

GameChat – Cleveland @ Minnesota #2, 12:10pm

First things first – Happy Birthday to Justin Morneau & Brian Dozier! It would be REALLY great if they could get a win to honor the day! Good baseball would be a gift to us all quite honestly but a Win would be the icing… There has to be something you can gain off birthdays right?

Phil Mackey put out a very interesting piece about Pavano’s start last night. I definitely recommend giving it a read but to sum up, Pavano is basically in charge of his own rehab (given recent history, I don’t blame him) and he says that he IS feeling better even if it’s not improving as fast as he would prefer. It sounds as though he is not going on the road with the team – at least for the Detroit portion – and work with a soft tissue specialist here in the cities. This could make the pitching rotation a little interesting and with this rotation, that’s kind of hard to do.

Today’s lineup is a bit interesting but then again, Gardy has a reputation to uphold for getaway day “B” lineups… Of course it doesn’t look all THAT different from our regular lineups but that is mostly because we don’t exactly have a big bench. Span is out today with a tight hamstring – supposedly nothing serious. It’s kind of fun to see a kid like Mastro showing up in that leadoff spot instead of Lexi for a twist. Hope to see him have a good time.

Also, the talk is that Morneau will be activated after the game today – I guess that’s SOMETHING for your birthday anyway – and Gardy has said that he will NOT go to 12 pitchers so one of position players is going to go back to Rochester. I don’t think it’s going to be a “last in, first out” situation. 😉 Reports are that either Plouffe or Parmelee will be heading back down. Given Plouffe’s performance lately, I can believe that but I’m trying to figure out how the platoon situation for 3B works without him – full time Carroll? Parmelee is more likely given the existing coverage I think.. we’ll just have to see what happens in the post game.

oh yeah, today’s game is only on MLB.tv or 1500espn radio.. (not that there’s a whole lot of people other than me that have mid-day TV access)

Cleveland

@

Minnesota
Choo, RF Mastroianni, CF
Kipnis, 2B Mauer, C
Cabrera, A, SS Willingham, LF
Santana, C, DH Doumit, DH
Brantley, CF Dozier, SS
Lopez, Jo, 3B Parmelee, 1B
Damon, LF Komatsu, RF
Kotchman, 1B Casilla, A, 2B
Marson, C Carroll, 3B
  Lowe, D, P   Marquis, P

 

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

R

H

E

Cleveland

0

1

1

0

3

0

0

0

0

5

10

0

Minnesota

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

0

6

0

Well… the weather was gorgeous? not much else you can say about this game that is all that positive.. Derek Lowe managed to pitch a complete game shutout – without throwing a single strike. So, congratulations to Derek Lowe? The twitter stream started a meme of “worm killing” to describe the Twins hitting – fairly appropos. Thank you Phil Mackey.

Yeah, not sure what else I can pull out of this experience for you other than I think this was a very good game to not have televised.

[Edit] I was right about the Plouffe/Parmelee scenario. Despite Plouffe not hitting OR fielding worthy of the big leagues, Parmelee was optioned down to AAA immediately following the game and Justin Morneau was activated and will play tomorrow in Detroit.

GameChat – Indians @ Twins, 7:10 pm

It only SEEMS like the Twins have been moved to the American League East Division this season. In fact, they remain members in good standing of the AL Central Division, despite having played only two of their first 34 games within their division.

Tonight, they begin to rectify that issue as they host the first game of a brief two-game series against Cleveland.

Justin Morneau, who is eligible to come off the DL on Wednesday, reportedly took live batting practice before the game, though we still have no official word on when he may find his way back in to the lineup.

I’m sure we’ll all be watching Carl Pavano closely tonight for evidence that his arm is about to separate from his shoulder. He either has or hasn’t been having shoulder soreness, did or didn’t have an MRI, which did or didn’t show anything wrong, but was or wasn’t sent to an outside physician for a second opinion and may or may not lead to a cortisone shot, after which he may or may not miss a start or even may or may not go on the DL himself.

Thank goodness we’ve cleared that up.

INDIANS

@

TWINS
Choo, RF Span, CF
Kipnis, 2B Dozier, SS
Cabrera, A, SS Mauer, 1B
Hafner, DH Willingham, LF
Santana, C, C Doumit, DH
Brantley, CF Plouffe, 3B
Lopez, Jo, 3B Mastroianni, RF
Kotchman, 1B Butera, C
Duncan, LF Carroll, 2B
  _Gomez, J, P   _Pavano, P
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Cleveland 0 0 0 2 2 0 0 0 1 5 8 1
Minnesota 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 3 0 4 5 0

Our guys made it interesting, thanks to a Ryan Doumit moon shot in the bottom of the eighth, but the Tribe scored one run off of Matt Capps in the top of the 9th and that was the ballgame. We did see Francisco Liriano’s first relief appearance and he was very good… right up to the point where he walked three straight batters. He got a strike out to end the inning at that point, so I guess on balance it was a successful appearance. Starting pitcher Carl Pavano threw just 72 pitches in his six innings of work.

Noon game on Tuesday to wrap up the short series.

.

Pull the Plug? Not… Quite… Yet

A 10-24 record. Ouch.

That’s the worst record in baseball. All of the hopes that Twinsville had for this team to at least be competitive coming in to the season have pretty much been flushed down the drain. I don’t think you’ll find any writer or fan holding on to the, “we’ll be fine if we can just turn this thing around,” lifeline at this point. Everyone seems to want GM Terry Ryan to just blow this thing up and start rebuilding for 2014 and beyond, right?

Well… maybe not quite everyone. At least not quite yet.

I’m as frustrated as anyone, especially with some of the flat out ugly baseball being played by the Twins. I’ve seen and heard enough of the Target Field Circus, thank you very much. For that reason alone, I’m on board with many of the roster moves that the Twins have made recently.

But before we completely write off this season, I think we need to ask ourselves two questions.

First… has anything gone right?

The reason you ask that question is to attempt to identify what’s gone wrong. If you can’t identify anything that’s gone right, then fine… blow up the roster and start over. But I don’t think that’s really the case.

Going in to the season, there were a handful of things that I felt needed to fall in to place for the Twins to be anything remotely resembling a contending baseball team:

  1. Mauer, Morneau and Span needed to be healthy and productive;
  2. They needed Josh Willingham and Ryan Doumit to adequately replace the bats lost in Michael Cuddyer and Jason Kubel;
  3. They needed improved defense, especially up the middle of the infield and in at least one corner outfield spot;
  4. They needed to hope they could find enough arms to piece together a bullpen that would be able to hold leads and keep games from getting out of hand late; and
  5. They needed improved starting pitching.

Obviously, the jury is still out on Justin Morneau, but I have to admit that if you had told me going in to the season that Mauer and Span would be putting up the numbers they’re putting up while playing almost every game, I’d have been happy to take those results. I’m also quite satisfied with Willingham and Doumit, at this point. The middle infield play has been far better than it was a year ago and while the outfield hasn’t been spectacular, I don’t hold my breath every time a ball is hit to one of the corner OF spots, so that’s a step up. The bullpen has actually been a pleasant surprise. (Be honest… how many people would have been willing to bet Matt Capps would not have blown a save yet at this point in the season?)

Frankly, while you can certainly improve other things here or there, it has been the rotation that has been almost exclusively responsible for where this team is sitting in the standings right now.

The second question we need to ask ourselves pertains to our expectations. How far behind the Division leaders did you think the Twins might possibly be by this point in the season?

When I looked at the goofy schedule that MLB put together for the Twins’ first six weeks, there was little doubt in my mind that they’d be at least 6-7 games out of first place at this point. True, I would have predicted that the Detoit Tigers would be at least six games over .500, while I don’t think anyone would have looked at the scheduled opponents for the Twins’ first 34 games and predicted a .500 record. Instead, the Tigers are right at .500 with a 17-17 record, while the Division-leading Cleveland Indians are just one game better at 18-16.

The Twins have faced AL East teams 17 times already. The Tribe: 7 games against the East. Detroit just nine games. At the same time, Cleveland has already accumulated an 8-7 record against other AL Central teams and Detroit is 7-4 within the Division. The White Sox, sitting in 3rd place in the Division at the moment, have already faced Divisional foes 18 times, putting up a 9-9 record. None of those intradivisional records include any games with the Twins, yet, as Minnesota’s played just two games within the Division, splitting a pair against the Royals.

So, what’s my point?

That’s a fair question.

My point is not to say that this is a Twins team destined to bring home a Championship. It’s not even to say that this team looks like it has the potential to be a very good team. But then, I didn’t believe this team would fall in to either of those categories when they broke camp in Fort Myers.

What I believed then was that, if things fell in to place and management was willing/able to make key adjustments when necessary, this team could be competitive within their Division (at least competitive enough to make them remain fun to watch)… provided that the Tigers didn’t run away and hide from everyone (which I really didn’t expect them to do).

So I guess my point is that I still believe that’s possible.

The Tigers have certainly done their part by underperforming against expectations and nobody else in the AL Central is very good.

If the Twins can get more performances out of their rotation like they’ve gotten out of Scott Diamond and PJ Walters, and fewer like they’ve gotten out of Francisco Liriano, the next couple of months could be very interesting to watch.

The Twins spend the next eight weeks playing games within their division and interleague games. Of their six interleague series opponents, only the Reds (17-16) have won more games than they’ve lost. Meanwhile, Cleveland will spend the last week of June and most of July facing AL East teams and interleague games include series against the NL Central leading Cardinals, as well as two other teams with winning records (two series with the Reds and one vs. the Marlins). The Tigers spend the end of May and first few days of June matched up with the Red Sox and Yankees and after interleague play (which also includes a series against the Cardinals) finish the month of June by spending a week visiting the Rangers and Rays. Their July is sprinkled liberally with other AL East teams, as well as the Angels. Meanwhile, the only series the Twins have with an AL East team between now and August is a mid-July series in Target Field against the Orioles.

If the Twins only win 10 of their next 34 games, then I’m on board with everyone else… put up the Yard Sale sign and sell off any asset you can get a fair return for.

But the more I look at the schedule… and what other teams in the AL Central Division have done… the less I feel like there’s any real rush to make drastic and irreversible decisions. The starting pitching needs to be better than it has been… pure and simple. But if that can be accomplished, I see no reason this Twins team shouldn’t still be able to live up to our limited expectations of them before the season started.

We could still have a little fun this summer.

– JC

Fun Twins Things


(photo: Foxsportsnorth.com)

10-24: The Twins record through their first 34 games, roughly 20% of their season.  Going in to 2012 I thought the Twins would be slightly better than a .500 ballclub, optimistically projecting them to win 83 games.  Yet here they are, 14 games under .500 with little reason to expect the Twins will be much better in the 128 games left on the schedule.  With that in mind, here is a list (of arbitrary length and order) of fun Twins Things from 2012.

  1. Josh Willingham – Willingham is leading the Twins in just about every offensive category you can think of, batting average, RBIs, on-base percentage, home runs, etc.  He’s come to Minnesota and established himself as a fan favorite.  Plus he looks like he’d be right at home chopping down trees in the forest with another Twins newcomer, Ryan Doumit.  Offense and tree chopping, two of my favorite things.
  2. Scott Diamond – Not exactly a success story in 2011, in his two starts since being called up in 2012 he has been perfect.  He’s pitched 14 innings without giving up a run and now has as many Wins in just two starts as any other Twins pitcher.  Also, Dick and Bert think that he looks like Cliff Lee, so take that for what it’s worth.
  3. Jamey Carroll – Before Sunday’s game FSN showed clips of some Twins players wishing their mothers (and sometimes their wives, too) a happy Mother’s Day.  During his segment Jamey Carroll referred to his mom as “the Bomb dot com.”  That was one of the best moments of 2012.  He’s also playing pretty great defense and was even rocking some variant of the Fu Manchu for a couple weeks.  Great stuff.
  4. The Joel Zumaya Saga – It is unfortunate that Zumaya couldn’t stay healthy and wound up heading back to the operating table before Spring Training was even in full swing because Zumaya had an opportunity to be the flame throwing reliever the Twins desperately need in their bullpen.  While the signing ultimately did not work out, there was plenty of fan excitement over the winter, speculating on the health and possible impact of a guy like Zumaya playing for the Twins.  Plus I liked saying, “Zoom-zoom”.
  5. Trevor Plouffe‘s hair – Love it or hate it, Plouffe’s curly locks have provided more humorous commentary in the Knuckleballs GameChat’s than just about any other Twins topic in 2012, follicle related or otherwise.
  6. Brian Dozier – For a while there when Dozier was hitting .400+ in AAA and it seemed like just about everyday some Twins blogger would be pining for the Twins to bring Dozier up to replace Carroll or Casilla.  Carroll and Casilla, in the meantime, managed to play pretty solid defense, but ultimately their lack of success in the batter’s box (and pretty much ever other Twins hitter as well) forced the Twins’ hand and they called up Dozier to be the everyday shortstop and he has not disappointed.  He’s been fun to watch defensively, getting to balls deep in the hole and showing off some pretty decent arm strength.  And he hit a home run yesterday!  Dozier is having fun playing baseball, and he’s even more fun to watch.
  7. Ryan Doumit’s defense – Just kidding.
  8. Lots of Roster Movement – 33 players have made appearances for the Twins this season.  Of those 33 players, 13 made the Twins debut (Jamey Carroll, Josh Willingham, Ryan Doumit, Jeff Gray, Jared Burton, Clete Thomas, Sean Burroughs, Matt Maloney, Erik Komatsu, Brian Dozier, Jason Marquis, Darin Mastroianni and P.J. Walters).  Lots of new faces, lots of action on the waiver wire and plenty of evidence that Terry Ryan and crew realize the on-field product stinks and are looking at ways to make it better (Like when they sent Danny Valencia down to Triple-A, that was my favorite).

So it is not all bad.  There are some fun things to watch and follow every day.  If I missed any, feel free to fill me in.  

Baseball is still fun, even if 10-24 is not.

ERolfPleiss

GameChat – Blue Jays @ Twins #4, 1:10 pm

Happy Mothers Day!

The Twins have an opportunity to split the series with the Blue Jays with another strong performance from Scott Diamond.  A little run support would be nice too, as the Twins burned a nice pitching performance, from P.J. Walters, yesterday by scoring just a single run in a 2-1 defeat.  Denard Span is the only Twins player with more than 10 plate appearances against Blue Jays’ starter Ricky Romero and Span has been very successful, posting a 1.088 OPS in 18 plate appearances.

Alexi Casilla is off again today, and since starting back to back games on May 5 and 6, he has not appeared in back-to-back games and has not played at all in 4 of the last 6.  Last night he entered the game late and was o-1 with a strikeout, not exactly giving Gardenhire reasons to pencil him in.

Here are the rest of the line ups:

Toronto Blue Jays

@

Minnesota Twins
 Johnson, K, 2B  Span, CF
 Escobar, Y, SS  Dozier, SS
 Bautista, RF  Mauer, 1B
Encarnacion, 1B  Willingham, LF
 Francisco, B, DH  Doumit, DH
 Lawrie, 3B  Plouffe, 3B
 Rasmus, CF  Komatsu, RF
 Arencibia, C  Butera, C
 Davis, R, LF  Carroll, 2B
  _Romero, R, P   _Diamond, P

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Toronto 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 3 10 1
Minnesota 0 0 1 0 3 0 0 0 x 4 10 1

The bullpen did not do Scott Diamond any favors this afternoon, but the Twins held on to a 4-3 victory thanks to 7 scoreless innings from Scott Diamond.  Diamond scattered just 5 hits throughout his afternoon of work, also picking up 4 strikeouts along the way.  Newcomer Brian Dozier had a solid day defensively and providing some offensive power with a solo homerun into the 2nd deck out in left field.

While Dozier certainly was exciting to watch, he’s only getting a small package of Girl Scout Cookies (his preference) for his work today.

Scott Diamond, Boyfriend of the Day (Credit: ESPN)

Scott Diamond is the BOD for the 2nd time in as many starts.  Congratulations Mr. Diamond, you earned it.

ERolfPleiss

GameChat – Blue Jays @ Twins #3, 6:10 pm

If today’s lineups look familiar, there’s a good reason… the Twins are sticking with the lineup that was a winner last night and the Jays are only swapping out their catcher in the #9 spot of the batting order.

Both teams have some young pitchers on the mound. Rookie Drew Hutchison is making the fifth start of the year… and of his career… for the Jays. In his last outing, Hutchison was the pitcher that gave up Albert Pujols’ first HR of the season. Of course, recent call-up PJ Walters is making his first start for the Twins. Walters made one brief relief appearance last year for Toronto after being acquired from the Cardinals organization but was sent to AAA immediately after that appearance.

For those of you who were wondering whether sending Brian Duensing out to pitch three innings on Wednesday was part of some sort of plan to stretch him out in case he needs to join the rotation, the Strib’s Joe Christensen tweeted that such was, in fact, the case.

On the injury front, things sound encouraging for Justin Morneau’s return at some point during the upcoming road trip. His wrist feels fine after some cage work and he hopes to face live BP this weekend some time. He’s eligible to come off the DL on Wednesday.

Let’s see if our guys can win two in a row for the second time this season! – JC

BLUE JAYS

@

TWINS
Johnson, K, 2B Span, CF
Escobar, Y, SS Dozier, SS
Bautista, RF Mauer, C
Encarnacion, DH Willingham, LF
Thames, E, LF Doumit, DH
Lawrie, 3B Plouffe, 3B
Rasmus, CF Parmelee, 1B
Lind, 1B Mastroianni, RF
Mathis, C Carroll, 2B
  _Hutchison, P   _Walters, P
  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
Toronto 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 7 0
Minnesota 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 5 0

If I was PJ Walters, I might be wondering what the heck happened to the Major League hitting he was supposed to have supporting him when he got called up to the Big Leagues. Walters threw six very good innings, striking out five and walking none. He gave up just six hits, but one of those was a “just barely” home run to Jose Bautista and that provided the margin of victory for the Jays.

Once again, the bullpen did its job, with Brian Duensing throwing two shutout innings and Jeff Gray adding another. The Twins had opportunities but were a combined 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position. You won’t win often with stats like that… but then that’s a lessen you’d think this team would have learned by now.