Twins 4, Indians 3

Written by: Justin Murphy on 2nd June 2009

Twins 4, Indians 3 | read this item

There were two stories in tonight’s game, a 4-3 Twins win over Cleveland in the Metrodome. First, Joe Mauer proved that he is no May phenomenon. Second, Kevin Slowey had a great start.

The Twins scored first in the third inning, when Denard Span singled home Alexi Casilla and was himself plated by Mauer. Span looked to be picked off first, but an errant throw let him advance to third base instead. Mauer then stroked a sweet single—his second of the game—into center field.

Slowey was helped early by two tremendous defensive plays. First, Brendan Harris dove deep in the hole to snag a Kelly Shoppach ground ball, then threw across the diamond. The throw was up the right field side of the bag, but Justin Morneau made a beautifully athletic play, simultaneously diving, scooping the ball of a single bounce on the turf, and keeping his foot on the bag. That was the first out of the inning.

One out later, Ben Francisco singled to bring Victor Martinez to the plate. Martinez crushed a ball into right center field that, off the bat, looked uncatchable. Carlos Gomez got a great jump on it, though, and leapt against the baggie to snare it in the air and take away extra bases and a run.

After finishing that inning, Slowey got on a roll, retiring 11 of the next 12 batters before getting into a jam in the 7th. With two men on, Shoppach hit a short pop fly near the first base line. Casilla, Span and Morneau converged on it, and Casilla seemed ready to make the catch, but Morneau got too close and may have ticked the ball. The end result was a double for Shoppach and two runs scoring.

Slowey’s final line was 6.2 innings pitched, six hits, two runs, two walks and five strikeouts. He began the game by establishing a solid fastball, and used his off-speed pitches effectively after getting ahead. The slider he threw to strike out Jhonny Peralta in the first inning was particularly fine. In the at-bat against Martinez that ended in Gomez’ spectacular running catch, Slowey got squeezed on a 2-1 pitch, but rebounded and brought the count full. He also struck Martinez out on a nasty changeup in the sixth. He improved to 8-1, tying him for the league lead in victories.

The Twins added two more in the fifth after Span singled up the middle. In his third at-bat, Mauer followed a ball on the outside of the plate and poked it into the first row of seats in left field, giving Minnesota a 4-0 lead for the time being. Mauer was intentionally walked in his fourth plate appearance, and thus finished 3-3 with a walk, a run scored and three batted in.

After Matt Guerrier finished Slowey’s work with a strikeout in the seventh, Jose Mijares came on in the eighth inning and made things slightly more interesting by giving up a long solo homer to Martinez. Joe Nathan came in with two outs and, after advancing a runner to third with a wild pitch, got the third out. Continuing in the top of the ninth inning, Nathan allowed one hit in earning the save, his tenth.

For the Twins, Span, Morneau and Harris all had two hits apiece, although Morneau also hit into two double plays. Gomez and Delmon Young, two hitters who most would especially like to see succeed, did not, going 0-7 with three strikeouts. Young has swung at 45% of first pitches this season, fourth most in the AL among batters with at least 100 plate appearances.

For Cleveland, shortstop Asdrubal Cabrera left the game in the top of the first after injuring his shoulder on a slide into second base. The last update was that he was getting x-rays at a local hospital; Jamey Carroll took his place in the batting order.

Cleveland starter David Huff lasted five innings, gave up four runs on nine hits and struck out four. The Indians’ bullpen, a major sore point for the team, combined for three scoreless innings. The teams meet again tomorrow night, with Cliff Lee facing Scott Baker.

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Topics: Alexi Casilla, Asdrubal Cabrera, Brendan Harris, Carlos Gomez, Cleveland Indians, Delmon Young, Denard Span, Joe Mauer, Joe Nathan, Jose Mijares, Justin Morneau, Kevin Slowey, Matt Guerrier, Minnesota Twins

Wednesday Game Notes « SethSpeaks.net says:

June 3, 2009 at 11:58 pm

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