Matt Garza (1-3, 5.06 ERA) was money Tuesday night against the Royals. The Twins were not. After going 7.2 innings, allowing only 5 hits and 2 runs, striking out 7 batters and walking 1, the Twins' offense still hadn't put a run on the board. Garza didn't even have a three-ball count on a batter until the seventh inning! The Kansas City runs came in the fifth after Emil Brown and Ryan Shealy both singled. Then John Buck doubled on a sharp fly ball to center, scoring Brown. The very next batter was Andres Blanco, who grounded out to second, scoring Shealy. This would end the scoring for the game.
So, where was the Twins' run support? They managed to scatter 5 hits throughout the game, but nothing ever came of them. This can be credited to the fabulous pitching performance by Mark Redman (8-8, 5.47 ERA). During his complete game shutout, he allowed only those 5 hits, with 3 strikeouts and no walks. He forced an impressive 14 ground outs and 10 fly outs in the game.
After Matt received a well-deserved standing ovation leaving the mound, Pat Neshek (3-0, 1.09 ERA) was called in to finish the eighth and pitch the ninth, allowing two more hits and a walk. Juan Rincon (3-1, 2.67 ERA) was brought in to strike out Mark Grudzielanek to give the Twins one more chance to score, but it just wasn't happening that night. With the White Sox beating the Devil Rays 12-9, Minnesota lost it's 0.5 game lead in the Wild Card once again.
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The Twins will look for their bats Wednesday night against Luke Hudson (6-5, 5.94 ERA), when they put Boof Bonser (3-4, 5.18 ERA) back on the hill in the second game of this series. Minnesota is 8-5 versus the already eliminated Kansas City Royals this season, so it'd be nice to add two more W's to that miserable record (miserable, considering they are one of the worst teams in baseball) in the last two games of the series. They won't meet again until September, in the second-to-last series of the season for four games.
5 comments:
I was so sad when Garza pitched SO WELL that he most definitely deserved the win and we couldn't even score one, let alone two or more, runs. Glad to see Garza doing better and better as he'll be a key for us. He's a great guy, and I hope we can take it to the Royals today, lol. Let's go, boys!
Ohh. Sweet. Just thought I would post again..because it worked!! haha
YES! I'm glad it worked, too.
And Garza...I was bummed out too. I'm glad he got a standing ovation and at least knew how much that performance meant to the fans and players.
The Royals seriously have no chance. Being eliminated in mid-August is pretty embarrassing for a club. Now they get to play spoiler...or at least attempt to.
Wednesday's in the bag with Johan, and hopefully the Twins can give Boof some run support tonight!
I'm as annoyed as you are at the Royals. My goodness, be our friend. I can't believe we just lost AGAIN to them. We can never hold our half game leads when we get them. I mean, having a lead for more than a game sounds fun, haha. Let's hope Santana's home magic is still here.
That was just difficult to watch. Let's hope Santana has a better time tomorrow afternoon. Boof was awesome at first, and I was all excited. Then BAM! Things started to fall apart. I hope Castillo is ok, too.
And yeah, why are the Royals playing so well? It's for nothing, I hope they know.
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