Twins take 2 of 3 from Baltimore

[Lynch]

Not a bad weekend, although not great.

Game 1: It took 12 innings to beat the O's 7-5. Radke got rocked for 5 runs in 5 innings. Somehow, miraculously, he didn't give up a HR or two, but he still got shelled. If not for some good pitching by Nathan at the end, and the bats of Mauer and Morneau, we easily could have lost that game. Morneau, who has been struggling all season long had a great night at the plate, going 2-4 with 2 HRs, 5 RBIs and 2 walks. Nathan pitched two shutout innings to earn the win (4-0 on the season now). Mauer was also solid going 3-5 and raising his season batting average to .384 (best in MLB). Latroy Hawkins blew the save (gotta giggle at that) and really could have/should have gotten the loss in doing so. Twins win 7-5 in 12 innings

Game 2: Silva gets rocked from the get-go, giving up 3 fast runs, including a 2 run shot from Tejada in the first. 3-0 Orioles before the twins even grab a bat. Silva settled down for a couple innings but still gave up a run in the 5th and 1 in the 6th. Silva gave up 5 runs and 10 hits before Gardendummy finally got smart enough to yank him. Lohse proved again that he's not ready to pitch in the majors as he gave up 4 more runs over the next 2 innings. Thankfully the Twins at least made a game out of it late lighting up the scoreboard for 5 runs in the bottom of the 7th and 2 more at the bottom of the 9th, but it was too little too late. The pitching staff had taken the Twins out of the game. Cuddy, Mauer, Morneau and Kubel were the Twins with the hottest bats, combining for 10 of the team's 14 hits and also 6 of the team's RBI's. Mauer goes 2-3 with 2 walks and 2 runs raising his MLB-best batting average to .388. Unfortunately, the Twins lose, 9-7.

Game 3: The rubber game. Liriano comes out hot and stays hot all game long. Francisco gives up 1 hit in 7 solid innings, while fanning 6 of the birds. Morneau had a great post-game quote regarding having Liriano on the mound. When the opposing team's batters get to the bag at first; "They look at me and say, 'I don't know how I got here,"'

Liriano is having a damn good season so far. As I said in another thread, if he can keep up his pitching and we can keep him and Santana on the payroll for another half dozen years (or more), we could very easily have the best one-two punch in all of baseball.

Twins win 4-0, and take the series 2 games to 1.




Series highlights:

Morneau: 7-12, 9 RBIs and 3 HRs. Raised his batting average from .235 to .255

Mauer: 6-12, 4 Runs and a SB. Continues to lead the league in BA with a current average of .386

Liriano: 7 solid innings of 1 hit baseball, fanning 6 and earning his 5th win of the year.




The parts we'd like to forget:

Radke: 5 IP giving up 5 runs and 7 hits. Season record stays at 5-7. No early innning home run though.

Silva: 6 IP, 10 hits and 5 runs. Only 2 K's earning him a 2-8 season record.

Lohse: 2.2 IP, 4 hits, 4 runs 3 walks. Season ERA is at 9.22





take 2 from

[ThomasTomasz]

Sounds like a great series, and too bad I missed it due to my graduation. I wish the Orioles would keep the batting order with Roberts, Mora, Tejada, and Hernandez at the top, because that is the best combination. When Perlozzo and Mazzilli (last year) started moving Mora out of #2, the offense struggled. If we kept that basic front four, then the Orioles could have made it interesting for the Twins. Anyway, great series from that brief, I appreciate it.