GameChat – Twins @ Rangers, 7:05pm

The Twins have a couple things to be thankful for while in Texas at the moment… First, it’s cooler there than it is at my house in MN – not by much but it IS cooler (of course it is 100 degrees at my house as I type this so it doesn’t take much). Second, no rain.. after the crazy delays of every game in Detroit, it must be nice to look at the clock and start on time.. I’m also grateful for this because those crazy delays were bad enough in Eastern time, no way would I make it to the end of games delayed that long in Central time.

At any rate, we have baseball to play and I wish I could see a little bit just to see Joe Nathan – hopefully, not in his official capacity. My hope is that the Twins offense and Liriano’s pitching can keep us from entering the merest suggestion of a Texas save situation.

It always feels good to pick up a game against one of the big boys of the league, doesn’t it? The Rangers demonstrated that they’re capable of playing a little circus-defense and our guys took advantage.

Kudos to Justin Morneau… not only did he pick up TWO hits against a left handed pitcher (something that’s been far too rare this season), but one of them was a line shot two run home run to right field. That was good enough to earn him consideration for Boyfriend of the Day tonight, but in the end, Francisco Liriano earned that honor. Frankie did walk a few more than we like to see, but he kept his cool and gave up just the one run in 6 2/3 innings while striking out six Rangers. – JC

Francisco Liriano