Before things turned ugly for the Twins in the seventh inning, Thursday’s game was a tension-filled pitcher’s duel between Roy Halladay and Francisco Liriano. Every mistake and every missed opportunity seemed magnified, making it a nice early season test for the Twins.

Alexi Casilla (0-for-4 with two K’s and a GDP) had a bad night. First inning, Michael Cuddyer slams into the right-field baggie, catching Aaron Hill’s long drive. But a nice play turned into a bad play, as Casilla missed Cuddyer’s throw back toward the infield. Marco Scutaro tagged up and reached third, and when the ball dribbled away from Casilla, Scutaro scored.

Casilla had a chance to redeem himself in the fifth inning. Two on, no outs, Twins trailing 2-1. Casilla went to bunt against Halladay and failed on the first two strikes before swinging and missing strike three. Halladay dug in and fanned Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel to end that threat.

(*) Brian Buscher had a good night. He singled in his first two at-bats against Halladay and made a nice play to take a hit from Scott Rolen in the fourth inning. Buscher’s range isn’t the best, and he had to sprawl to the ground to stop the bouncer in the hole between third and short. But Buscher made a nice throw from his knees to get the out.

(*) Brendan Harris also had two singles against Halladay. Manager Ron Gardenhire had mixed up his lineup, sitting third baseman Joe Crede and shortstop Nick Punto, and Buscher and Harris showed off the Twins’ depth.

Gardenhire, however, mentioned two defensive plays in his postgame comments — Casilla’s first-inning blunder, and the play where Jose Bautista tagged up to reach third base before scoring the go-ahead run in the fifth inning. Denard Span was fairly deep in center field when he caught Marco Scutaro’s fly ball. Gardenhire mentioned that the cutoff man (Harris in this case) didn’t go out far enough.

“Probably, if we’re out there, we’re able to get that guy,” Gardenhire said. Bautista scored on Hill’s single to right field off Liriano, giving Toronto a 2-1 lead en route to a 9-2 victory.

(*) Besides playing Bob Marley music, players such as Justin Morneau, Casilla, Mike Redmond and Jose Morales were lined up in front of their lockers after the game, sipping beverages and talking baseball. You don’t see that every night, and both La Velle and I were struck by this old-school move – team building after a night of tension gave way to humiliation.

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