The Metrodome crowd groaned in the first inning tonight, when Placido Polanco’s broken-bat single dropped in front of Twins left fielder Delmon Young.

Then, the first five Twins batters worked Tigers starter Armando Galarraga for 25 pitches before Young had another one-pitch at-bat, grounding to third base to end the inning with runners at the corners.

(Young has had 98 of his 540 plate appearances end in one pitch for the Twins and has hit .309 in those instances. Joe Mauer, for comparison, has had just 31 of his 539 plate appearances end in one pitch.)

It was not a good start to the homestand for Young, whose right ankle injury has been a growing concern for the Twins.

But Young homered in his next at-bat, drilling a 1-2 slider from Galarraga over the center-field wall. It was Young’s ninth homer of the season, and it stretched the Twins’ lead to 2-0.

(Galarraga is 0-4 against the Twins this season, and 12-1 against everyone else.)

Then in the seventh, Young made the defensive play of the game. Magglio Ordonez hit a leadoff single that inning, and Miguel Cabrera followed with a liner to left. Young took a few quick steps and made a diving catch.

At the time, the Twins led 6-1, so if that ball lands for extra bases, it could have made the late innings more dramatic.

Instead, Liriano needed just two more pitches to escape the inning, getting Gary Sheffield to lunge at a change-up, starting a 5-4-3 double play.

Asked about Young after the 10-2 victory, Manager Ron Gardenire said, “Heck of a night. Great plays in the outfield. Wonderful play off Cabrera, as good as they get, especially with the lights and everything. Line drive out there goes through the lights.

“You could see [Young] limping all over the place. And he hit a bomb [on the 412-foot home run]. The guy hung a slider — that just tells you how strong he is. He’s been swinging good.

“We’re concerned with his ankle. He says he’s fine, but he’s limping. If we could just get him to get treatment, but he doesn’t like to get treatment, so that’s kind of a little bit of a struggle. He says there’s nothing you can do about it, it’s just going to be there. So there you have it.”

This entry was posted on Friday, September 5th, 2008 at 11:15 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.