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