Recap 4/27/2007 Twins 5, Motor City Kitties 3

It seems like its been a long time since I've been able to write a recap about a win, and thats mostly because it has been. The Twins have gone almost a full week without a win and it's been an emotional drain at my household watching as our beloved Twins lose close game after close game because of an inept offense that has been terrible at getting runners on base via hit or walk, and has failed almost completely when the opportunity comes to bring those runners in.

Twins Batters Over The Past 5 Games;

- 37/174--.212BA
- Twins Batters not named Joe Mauer 32/157--.203
- 4/31 W/RISP-- .129

There's a lot people have said about this losing streak. They've blamed Gardy for not getting the line-up right. They've blamed Sidney Ponson for getting trashed by the Royals. They've blamed Nick Punto because he's been miserable all year. But the truth is, everyone has been terrible. There is simply no excuse for major league hitters, even bad ones, to hit .129 with runners in scoring position. None. Honestly, I think most guys have to TRY to hit that bad. But we Twins fans have been subjected to an entire week of the same exact thing and its tiring. In a division where wins will be earned with blood, as Torii Hunter can attest, losing winnable games to weak teams is a death sentence, because not every year can be last year. Rest assured, if the Twins dig themselves a 12 game hole as they did last year, this division will not allow them to climb back into the race again.

All of that being said there were some good things that happened tonight. I'm certainly not going to call it a turn around, we still hit only 8 hits in 34 at bats (.235), but we did score when we needed to, and if we can begin doing that more consistently we'll win enough ball games to stay competitive. And once again we got another string performance from Ramon Ortiz who continues to defy the odds and stay solid. Tonight was probably his worst performance of the season and it was still a quality start against a tough Tigers team. Though he did spend much of the game in trouble due to his four walks, he did a good job of working through it and avoiding the dreaded "big inning" we had been led to fear would be coming. His 2.57 ERA thus far is certainly far beyond what anyone could've expected and the contributions he's made to the team are perhaps more important than those of any other single player.

Offensively the action came in the eighth as the Twins finally got to Tigers starter Nate Robertson as Jason Bartlett led off the inning with a walk before Nick Punto chased Robertson with a single to center. The Tigers then turned to fireballer Joel Zumaya. Luis Rodriguez successfully got down a sacrifice bunt moving Bartlett and Punto to to second and third. Then for the second night in a row Mike Redmond delivered a clutch single to score both runners and tie the score. Next up was Mike Redmond who doubled, moving Redmond to third. Then the Tigers inexplicably gave Morneau, who's hitting .200 with runners in scoring position, a free pass so they could get to Torii Hunter who's been hitting the cover off the ball. However, just to prove they know more than I do, the plan worked and Torii went down swinging. Then the Twins brought in their not-so-secret weapon, Joe Mauer who (shock) delivered a two run single giving the Twins the lead.

The other great piece of news for Twins fans is that our vaunted bullpen came through, something they haven't been doing as good a job as one might think they would be. So far this season Joe Nathan, Juan Rincon, Dennys Reyes, and Glen Perkins all have WHIP's above 1.60, and the Twins relievers are allowing a combined .365 BAA!