John Lackey was 9-3 with a 2.37 ERA in his first 12 starts this season. But that was before he ran into the Twins’ offensive juggernaut. The Twins handed the All-Star righthander a loss on June 6, and they did it again Friday, as he got pounded for seven runs on a season-high 10 hits.

In Lackey’s past eight starts, he is 3-3 with a 4.50 ERA. Two of those losses have come against the Twins. Don’t ask us to explain it. This one was almost as stunning as the June 6 game, when the Twins came in after scoring a total of six runs in a four-game losing streak.

After scoring five runs in three losses to Detroit, and after losing cleanup hitter Michael Cuddyer to a sprained thumb injury, the Twins fell behind 2-0 in the first-inning and seemed to take out all of their frustrations on Lackey. Justin Morneau went 2-for-3 with a homer and three RBI against Lackey, and Jason Kubel went 3-for-3 with a triple and two RBI.

Angels manager Mike Scioscia said Lackey has been good in a bend-but-don’t-break sort of way. But the Twins scored three runs in the first inning, and four more in the third. That’s bending and breaking. Meantime, the Angels drought without a home run continues. They’ve gone 13 games and 123 innings without a long ball. Somewhere on an Angels blog, there’s a disappointed fan writing, “Get rid of Lackey! Send him to Minnesota for that Kubel guy.”

This entry was posted on Friday, July 20th, 2007 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.