Twins 11, Indians 3

Written by: Justin Murphy on 4th June 2009

Twins 11, Indians 3 | read this item

For the second straight night, early jitters from the starting pitcher were enough to quickly put the game out of reach. On Thursday, however, it was Cleveland’s Fausto Carmona who struggled, and the Twins hitters who took advantage. Minnesota won the game 11-3, thereby claiming a series victory.

Carmona has struggled with control for all of 2009 and 2008, and it was apparent from the first inning in this game. Denard Span and Joe Mauer, serving as designated hitter, each walked to lead off the game, and Justin Morneau’s single scored Span. The next batter, and fourth consecutive lefty, was Jason Kubel, who deposited a pitch over the wall in the deepest part of center field.

Against those first four batters, every single pitch was on the outside part of the plate, or off it. The only pitch that drifted back towards the middle of the plate was the one that Kubel hit out.

In the second inning, facing the same four men, Carmona attempted to throw inside, but a lack of control in and out of the zone did him in again. Mauer singled on a fastball middle-in, and Morneau walked on an inside pitch. And, again with two runners on, Kubel again connected with a home run, this one over the baggy in right center.

Kubel also doubled in the sixth and was walked intentionally in the eighth. His six RBIs tied a career high. It is surely not a coincidence that Kubel has been taking extra batting practice with hitting coach Joe Vavra for the last several days; on Wednesday, he was in the cages with Vavra and Brian Buscher long before any of his teammates had taken the field.

After the game, Vavra explained the fix: “[Kubel] had to tighten up his alignment on his lower half, and make sure he’s bringing his lead foot in so he can close his stance, so he can trust his hands. That’s his biggest strength, his hands at contact. If you leak a little bit and you don’t get back closed with your lower half, you’re only going to handle a small percentage of the plate. This way, he’s handling the whole plate again.”

Staked to such a comfortable lead, Scott Baker cruised into the fifth inning before allowing his first hit, a Mark DeRosa double. His fastball had great late movement, reaching 92 on a fifth inning strikeout of Trevor Crowe.

“My mechanics are pretty good right now,” he said. “When your mechanics are good, it seems like everything comes together, and the ball comes out of your hand a little better. I definitely wasn’t trying to throw any harder.”

Baker allowed two runs in the sixth inning and a third in the seventh, but struck out a career-high 10 batters and walked only one. When he tired in the seventh, he gave up a few hard-hit balls, but Carlos Gomez tracked them down in center field (all except Chris Giminez’ solo home run, his first major league hit)

Kubel was actually one of three Twins with multi-hit games; the other two were usual suspects Morneau and Mauer, who each had three hits. Morneau’s homer in the sixth inning was a cannon into the upper deck, and followed a solo shot by Span to lead off. Morneau was 3-3 with two walks, two runs scored and three RBIs. Mauer’s three hits were all singles, and he crossed the plate four times.

If there is a concern from this game—and it’s not clear that there is—it is that the bottom of the batting order struggled, going 3-17 in the 5-9 spots. For the series, the 5-9 hitters were 10-46. Mike Redmond and Matt Tolbert were both 0-4, while Brendan Harris hit a double to extend his hitting streak. Redmond also took a ball off his thumb towards the end of the game, but said afterwards that it was all in the line of duty.

After Baker exited, Sean Henn threw two innings in mop-up duty, allowing two baserunners and no runs while striking out three. As a team, Minnesota had 13 strikeouts in the game, their most all season long. They’ll board a plane for Seattle tonight, where they start out on an extended road trip.

Topics: Brendan Harris, Carlos Gomez, Chris Giminez, Cleveland Indians, Denard Span, Fausto Carmona, Jason Kubel, Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Mark DeRosa, Matt Tolbert, Mike Redmond, Minnesota Twins, Scott Baker, Sean Henn, Trevor Crowe

Thursday Game Notes « SethSpeaks.net says:

June 5, 2009 at 12:21 am

[...] He was at all three games of the Cleveland series, and posted his Game Recaps. Here is his recap of the Twins 11-3 win on Thursday afternoon. Then to top off his week, he joined me as the co-host of last night’s [...]