I came into tonight planning an article on how Twins pitchers have gone above and beyond this series and what it might mean for this 14 day road trip. Then Blackburn started tonight. I guess the Angel offense that was brilliantly stifled the previous two days chose today to explode out of their recent poor streak.
Neither starting pitcher reached the fifth inning; Blackburn went four and two thirds. While obviously not good, it is only amplified by the previous two Twins games. Blackburn gave up six runs on ten hits, but two of those were off a Gomez “misjudgment.”
I guess Gomez had it waiting for him as well. Hunter gave up a crucial hit when he misjudged a ball earlier in the series, and all the talk was how Gomez could have made it. Tonight, albeit in not as crucial of a situation, Gomez misjudged a ball that allowed two runs to score.
Either way, Blackburn wasn’t at his best tonight. Bonser also pitched tonight, giving up only one run on two hits over two and two thirds innings. He had his strikeout pitch working just fine for him tonight, as he made a total of two batters sit down on strike three. Breslow also came on and pitched two outs of perfect baseball.
On the hitting side of things, Minnesota still managed to get five runs across the plate. While it wasn’t enough tonight, it will be most other nights. Casilla provided some offense fireworks for this visiting team as he knocked a fastball over the right field wall. Morneau was hitless tonight, and his horrible career against the Angels continues. To be fair, he did break a long hitless streak the other night when Gardy allowed him to bat in the ninth inning. Mauer also only managed one hit in four trips to the plate.
As I have been saying all season long, these two guys need to be the main offensive production for the Twins if they want to succeed. Obviously this isn’t going to happen every night, or even every series, so I am perfectly willing to let them both off the hook tonight.
Punto and Gomez both had two hits apiece.
When you put this game into perspective, I am not worried at all about this loss. The fact that the White Sox lost just adds to it. Tonight was a night of revenge for Los Angeles (or Anaheim, or whatever) and should be taken in stride. A start like Baker or Perkins had won’t happen every time you pitch, so I am not worried.
In short, the Twins had this coming to them. Let’s just move on, accept defeat from the better team tonight, and try to win the series tomorrow.
Nick Blackburn is unreliable on the road. Quite frankly, he has been shaky lately. It looks like the innings that he has pitch is catching up to him, and that can’t be a good thing. He needs to find that one more wind in him to pitch in this pennant chase. At least, Perkins and Slowey are proving that they can handle the stretch run.The Twins are off to a very good start of this much hyped road trip that they are in for the next two weeks. To win the first two games against a very good Angels team is huge. The worse they can do is get a split, but they can go get a series tomorrow afternoon with a win. Regardless, this weekend was a success. The Twins have had problems against the Angels for the last few years so to get the first two was huge for the team’s psyche. It’s a good start for the road trip.To me, the Twins need to do well this week against two poor teams in baseball. The Mariners have mailed it in. based on their road trip against the Twins and the White Sox so there is no way the Twins should lose that series against Seattle. The A’s stink so getting three out of four is a must. The key to this road trip is this coming week because by beating the bad teams, they should have a successful road trip.The Twins will eventually get tired from the travel in the final leg of the trip so to me, it’s imperative to get off to a good start on this trip.