The Twins have a shot at winning yet another series from a first place ballclub today as they close out their series with Texas. With Scott Baker’s complete game gem yesterday, the bullpen should be plenty rested to support Francisco Liriano, if necessary. But will the Minnesota Red Wings line up continue to wreak havoc at the plate and on the basepaths against Rangers lefty Matt Harrison? Harrison has been just about as consistent as Liriano (which is to say, not at all), so it’s all up to the baseball gods today. Speaking of which, if it’s not asking too much, maybe those baseball gods could find a way to drop a loss or two on the Tigers and White Sox?
| RANGERS | @ | TWINS |
| Kinsler, 2B | Revere, CF | |
| Andrus, SS | Casilla, A, SS | |
| Hamilton, LF | Cuddyer, 1B | |
| Young, M, 1B | Young, D, LF | |
| Beltre, A, 3B | Hughes, L, 3B | |
| Cruz, N, RF | Valencia, DH | |
| Torrealba, C | Repko, RF | |
| Murphy, Dv, DH | Rivera, R, C | |
| Gentry, CF | Tolbert, 2B | |
| _Harrison, P | _Liriano, P |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E | |
| Texas | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Minnesota | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 0 | x | 6 | 9 | 1 |
Terrific ballgame! Combined with losses today by Cleveland and Detroit, today’s win moves the Twins within 9 games of the AL Central leaders.
Luke Hughes with three hits certainly seems determined to make a case that he deserves to stay with the Twins, no matter who comes off the DL, Lexi Casilla “only” had two hits (the slacker!) and Michael Cuddyer hit home run #9 on the season.
But Francisco Liriano was headed for his second no-hitter of the season through the 7th inning, until the seventh inning stretch and a five-run outburst by his team mates forced him to sit for a half an hour before taking the mound for the 8th inning. Still, you can’t argue with 1 earned run on 2 hits, no walks and 9 strikeouts over 8 innings of work. That earns Frankie our BOD award!
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