Twins fans should breathe a sign of relief. They proved Tuesday that they can beat the Tigers.

How often? We'll find out.

Craig Monroe's three-run homer in the fourth inning was the biggest blow in the game. Monroe played several years for the Tigers and had plenty of motivation for this series against the team that gave up on him.

The Twins had 14 hits. Monroe had two hits; Carlos Gomez had two hits and a run; Alexi Casilla had three hits, a run and an RBI; Mike Redmond (playing for Joe Mauer at catcher) had two hits, a run and two RBIs; and Justin Morneau, three hits and a run. As manager Ron Gardenhire said, "We left a ton of runs out there."

Scott Baker wasn't great. He allowed seven hits and three earned runs in six innings. But that was good enough because of the potent Twins offense.

Continue reading "Twins tame Tigers"

The series against the Tigers began badly for the Twins, losing a close one. But they took the final two games in the series, taking the finale in a laugher.

Nick Blackburn pitched seven innings of three-hit ball, and Jesse Crain and Boof Bonser completed the shutout against a team that had been hitting above .300 lately.

The Twins have won 13 of 15 games overall. Unfortunately for them, the team they're chasing is also hot. The White Sox have won six in a row.

The Twins played small ball, which they're good at, The team laid down three bunts and followed form in another way, using the big inning.

Joe Mauer had the key hit in the five-run third inning, knocking in two with a single. Jason Kubel, Delmon Young and Brian Buscher had RBI singles in the inning. All those players have had big roles in the Twins' resurgence.

Continue reading "Twins cage Tigers, win 7-0"

Pro football is right around the corner, and the Vikings are not being ignored by the punditocracy. The June 30 issue of SI includes a feature on new Vike Jared Allen, and it’s a good story.

Now here’s the bad news for Vikes fans: SI’s Dr. Z picks the team to win the Super Bowl. I'm sure Bears, Packers and Lions fans are all scoffing.

Why, you ask, is that bad news? Simple. He’s no good at picking anything. He would’ve picked Poland against Germany in 1939 and Grenada against the United States in the 1980s.

And I hate to see the Vikings get too much ink. It’d be much better if they come in low on the radar. That’s not going to happen considering that the Vikes got Allen and that hotshot running back Adrian Peterson might be even better this year.

Continue reading "Vikings in the Super Bowl? Hmm."

Many Twins fans were probably thinking "Here we go again" when the Twins fell behind Thursday.

The Twins were down 6-2 to a tough Tigers team playing at home. I heard the scored on the radio and thought, "Oh, no, they're going to be out of the race before long."

Hold your horses. The Twins came back, the middle relief was better than it had been during the disastrous Red Sox series. The final: Twins 7, Tigers 6.

Justin Morneau had five hits, two runs -- and the game-winning homer in the 11th. The game was odd statistically. Six Twins players had no hits, yet Nick Punto went three for four with two runs and Denard Span was four for four with two runs and an RBI.

The bullpen had a great game, making up for a poor start by Kevin Slowey, who allowed six runs in three and two-thirds innings. The pen allowed no runs in seven and one-third innings. The winner was Matt Guerrier, who lost the second game in Fenway Park -- when the Twins were up three runs.

Continue reading "Gut check for Twins"

Brendan Harris, moved from third to short to replace the injured Nick Punto, continued to swing a hot bat to lead the Twins over the Tigers on Saturday, 6-5.

Harris went three for three, homered and drove in four runs to lead the Twins, who have won three straight over Detroit after being swept at Fenway Park in Boston.

Harris is hitting .357 since June 17, raising his average from .232 to .262. You may remember he and Delmon Young were part of the deal that sent starter Matt Garza and shortstop Jason Bartlett to Tampa Bay. Everyone was quick to declare that deal a lopsided one in favor of the Rays, but you better hold on. The Rays, by the way, are in a funk right now, having lost five in a row and are down 7-0 against the Indians right now.

Other heroes for the Twins are two of their players headed for the All-Star game in Yankee Stadium -- Joe Mauer, who hit a two-run homer, his fifth, and Joe Nathan, who struck out three in a dominating ninth inning. (That last half-inning was broadcast on Fox because the Arizona-Philadelphia game ended early. Nathan looked great -- one guy hit a couple of fouls and that was it. Whiff, walk, whiff, whiff.

Continue reading "Twins top Tigers again"

Shut out the Rangers? Are you kidding?

Yes, the Twins tamed the Rangers' great hitters -- four of whom were in the All-Star Game, including Josh Hamilton -- and shut the team out for the first team this year. The Rangers were the last team to be shut out in the 2008 season.

Hamilton? No hits. Ian Kinsler? Nada, ending his 25-game hitting streak. Michael Young? One hit. Milton Bradley? One measly hit.

And who was the most recent team to shut out the Rangers? The Twins at home on Aug. 19, when Johan Santana struck out 17 batters. 

The Rangers entered the game leading the majors in most offensive categories, including batting average, runs, hits, slugging percentage and total bases.

Glen Perkins had a terrific start, allowing three hits in six innings. Craig Breslow, Jesse Crain and Boof Bonser completed the good work Perkins started.

Continue reading "Twins gun down Rangers, 6-0"

I figured maybe the Twins were due for a bad game after such a great game Friday shutting out the Rangers. Boy, was I wrong -- but then just about everyone's been wrong about the team this wrong.

The Twins won, 14-2, smashing 16 hits. Small ball? Forget it. The Twins hit four homers, one a titanic shot by Delmon Young.

In 35 games since June 1, Young is batting .350 with 10 doubles, four homers and 24 RBIs. Said Gardenhire of his homer to center field: "That just tells you how much he has inside of him." 

Also going deep were Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau and Brian Buscher.

Mauer went two for three with three runs and three RBIs. Morneau was two for four with two runs and five RBIs. Young, who boosted his average to .299, was two for four with two runs and two RBIs after going four for four Friday.

Continue reading "Twins torment Texas"

So the Rangers finally beat the Twins. How many hits did they muster?

Uh, three. One of them was a homer by Taylor Teagarden (who?), and that was all Texas needed to win 1-0 at the Metrodome on Sunday.

The Twins definitely wasted a great performance by Scott Baker, who had a perfect game into the sixth inning. But the team, which scored six and 14 runs in the first two games of the series, couldn't muster a single run in this series.

Joe Mauer was on third in the bottom of the ninth after walking and advancing on a wild pitch, but Justin Morneau grounded out to end the game.

Mauer, Brian Buscher and the red-hot Delmon Young had the Twins' only hits. I'm not surprised the Rangers scraped out a win in the series -- they're much improved -- but the 1-0 score is a shock. Both teams had been scoring plenty of runs.

Continue reading "Rangers arrest Twins' streak"

I used to believe I had already gone through the greatest sports books already, but a summer read has changed my mind.

"Eight Men Out," by Eliot Asinof, is quite unlike most great sports books and movies, which tend to be inspirational. This is nothing of the sort — it’s a cynic’s delight, the kind of book that reinforces your sense that the world is screwed up, no one has pure motives and problems are not so much solved as dealt with by finding convenient scapegoats.

The book is about the betting scandal that tore up baseball in 1919. Several White Sox players received money to deliberately lose the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. The Sox were heavily favored and lost.

But this isn’t your garden variety scandal. The players come off as innocents who were upset that they were underpaid by Albert Comiskey — they earned about half what the Reds players made though they were much better.

Continue reading "'Eight' good enough to be among best sports books"

The Twins have had some disastrous series this season, and none was worse than the one in Yankee Stadium a few days after the all-star break. Fans might be forgiven for thinking the Twins were playing themselves out of contention.

But they've proved themselves resilient. They'll follow a horrible series with a good one. Let's just hope they play well against good teams down the stretch.

Before and after the Yankee series they took two of three at home vs. the Rangers and two of three from the Indians on the road. They easily could've swept both series.

Justin Morneau has been in the middle of many wins, and that was the case Sunday when the Twins scored two in the top of the ninth to defeat Cleveland, 4-2. Alexi Casilla got a hit with one out, and then Mike Redmond struck out. Morneau hit a double to plate Casilla, and Jason Kubel knocked Morneau in with a single.

Continue reading "Twins gather momentum before key series with White Sox"

Most people would say the surprise team of the year in baseball is the Rays. The Twins are a close second.

This series against the White Sox is crucial. After this, they play only one more series. This is the team the second-place team must catch up.

The Twins did just that, and in inspiring -- and typical -- fashion as they moved to within a half-game of the Sox.

Minnesota doesn't hit that many homers. What it does do is score during the big innings, and using speed and clutch hitting. Each game it's one or two familiar figures and a couple of guys not very well-known outside the Twin Cities.

Justin Morneau is staking his claim to being a legitimate contender for the MVP. (Or if he isn't, I am making the claim for him.) He got the big hit in the five-run fifth inning, clearing the bases with a double. For the record, he has knocked in 82 runs while hitting 17 homers and batting .320. He is on course to have the kind of year he had two years ago when he was the MVP as the team won the division title on the last day of the season.

Continue reading "Twins come back to knock off Sox"

You're chasing the top team in your division. They come to town for a four-game series. You must win three of four at least.

That's just what the Twins did by winning 10-6 on Thursday. But it was the way they did it that's so hopeful for the Twinkies.

Minnesota was down 4-0 before Justin Morneau stepped to the plate in the fifth. Morneau, who's been on a tear, smacked a home run. Joe Mauer's hit tied the game in the seventh with Jason Kubel up. Yup, he followed in Morneau's footsteps with a three-run jack of his own. The Twins scored a few more in the eighth and that was that.

Mauer was three for four with a run and two RBIs, while Nick Punto, Brendan Harris and Delmon Young had two hits.

Scott Baker didn't have a great outing, but it was good enough. Nor was the bullpen perfect, but it was up to the task.

Continue reading "Twins come back, take three of four from Sox"