Because of contractual obligations, the final game of this series on Thursday is a night game. So the Twins will end this long road trip by tucking in around 2 a.m.

Francisco Liriano, however, will to the Twin Cities at 1 p.m. tomorrow so he can rest comfortably for his start against the Tigers on Friday.

Delmon Young is still bothered by a sore right ankle, which is one reason why he’s not in the starting lineup today.

The other:

Left-handed hitters are batting .272 against A.J. Burnett. Right-handed hitters are batting .242. And there’s a OPS difference of more than 100 points L vs R.

So Twins manager Ron Gardenhire’s lineup on Wednesday reflects that. Welcome back, Matt Tolbert.

Lineups

Twins (77-61)

1. Denard Span, RF.
2. Alexi Casilla, 2B
3. Joe Mauer, C
4. Justin Morneau, 1B
5. Jason Kubel, LF
6. Brian Buscher, DH
7. Nick Punto, SS
8. Matt Tolbert, 3B.
9. Carlos Gomez, CF

Pitching: Nick Blackburn

Blue Jays (71-66)

1. Joe Inglett, 2B
2. Marco Scutaro, SS
3. Alex Rios, RF
4. Vernon Wells, CF
5. Adam Lind, LF
6. Rod Barajas, C
7. Lyle Overbay, 1B
8. Scott Rolen, 3B
9. Travis Snider, DH

Pitching: A.J. Burnett

Programming note: The Thursday, Sept. 11 game against Kansas City has been picked up by FoxSports North. And the Sept. 20 game at Tampa Bay will be televised nationally by FOX. That game time has been moved from 6:10 CST to 2:55.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 3rd, 2008 at 4:58 pm and is filed under Game threads. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.