Hope you enjoyed your off-day but now we’re back to Twins baseball!
As several of my favorite bloggers have pointed out, we are down to the final 50 games of the season! And the Twins are officially tied with the White Sox for first place in the Central Division. That makes this series especially exciting!! We have 9 games left against the White Sox and every single game is going to count! If you want to know how much it counts, I really encourage you to read the piece Seth Stohs did for TwinsCentric: 50 Game Season begins tonight!
As far as injury updates go, Joe C was actually kind enough to go check on Nick Punto since I asked! He’s progressing well from the hamstring strain and is eilligible to come back on Friday. It’s not known for sure if he’ll be ready to go but it’s at least possible. Morneau is not going to join the team in Chicago afterall – but he’s continuing his workouts. Tolby is getting better too – gonna start a rehab assignment. I’m not sure what is going to happen when all our utility infielders are back on track – we seem to have a few extra now.
Anyway, let’s hope that Baker has his stuff tonight. He’s going to need to really bring it because the White Sox are going to show up loaded for bear.
| Minnesota | @ | Chi White Sox |
| Span, CF | Pierre, LF | |
| Hudson, O, 2B | Vizquel, 3B | |
| Mauer, C | Rios, CF | |
| Young, D, LF | Konerko, 1B | |
| Kubel, RF | Kotsay, DH | |
| Cuddyer, 1B | Ramirez, A, SS | |
| Thome, DH | Quentin, RF | |
| Valencia, 3B | Castro, R, C | |
| Hardy, SS | Lillibridge, 2B | |
| Baker, S, P | Garcia, F, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Minnesota | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 14 | 1 |
| Chi White Sox | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 10 | 0 |
*still giggling* Yes, you read that boxscore correctly. You see that bit where it says we got 12 runs on 14 hits?? Yeah, 5 HOME RUNS, BABY!!! I’m really a small ball girl – I love the running of the bases and smart hits and steals and good bunts. But you really gotta love it when the Twins go to the long ball in Chicago so successfully!!! We really got to Freddy Garcia right off too. And the offense was ON it from the top of the order to the bottom. Thome was having a LOT of fun against his former team – obviously one of the homeruns but more surprisingly, a DOUBLE! Mauer was 3/5 with 2 runs and once again was a triple short of the cycle. Kubel had one of the homeruns and 3 WALKS!! EVERY starter got a hit tonight – it was an offensive buffet supporting a very solid Scott Baker. He struggled early and gave up three runs in the 2nd inning but pulled himself back into focus and kept them stalled out from then on. Obviously, that 40th bday party y’all threw for Jim Thome got everyone on the same page! I love it! As Kbro pointed out, the image to remember from this game is of Ozzie Guillen with the face/palm.
With all the fireworks from the bats tonight, there was a LOT of discussion about who actually earned tonight’s BOD (including a snide mention of Freddy Garcia 😉 ) so just for giving us so many to choose from, the whole lineup gets an all-you-can-eat buffet of baked goods. But the actual BOD honors as voted go to Michael Cuddyer! It’s been awhile for him but going 2/5 with a homerun and 4 RBI is nothing to sneeze at. Good job boys!
*** Post game note: in order to make room for Glen Perkins to come out to pitch for Kevin Slowey tomorrow, the Twins sent Trevor Plouffe back down to Rochester after the game. That’s pretty much to be expected I think right now. Some had asked, “why not Morales?” and my answer is that Gardy still likes that bench bat that doesn’t take away his DH if he’s got Mauer in that spot instead of behind the plate. Gardy won’t give that up until he has to. At least we are now back to 12 pitchers on the roster. I’m just guessing but I really don’t think that Perk will go back down. When Kev comes back, it will be interesting to see what happens. ***