Let’s not sugarcoat it. This has been an awful road trip. The Twins have failed to make plays in the field, cash in on run-scoring opportunities and solve their late-inning bullpen problems.

There were numerous mistakes on Wednesday.

Nick Punto was devoured by a line drive. A tough play, but a play he must make.

Matt Tolbert made a horrible throw on a routine play.

Jason Pridie’s first game in the majors will be remembered for how he tried to make an aggressive play on a ball hit to him and committed a costly error.

After Tolbert’s leadoff triple in the fifth, Carlos Gomez and Denard Span could’t just put the ball in play and score run - although it seemed A.J. Burnett threw his best breaking balls of the night there.

Joe Nathan says he feels great on the mound and is ready to pitch as much as the Twins need him. But a leadoff walk to a backup catcher is unacceptable.

Two good things that happened Wednesday: Righthander Nick Blackburn was generally solid for 62/3 innings, giving up two earned runs on six hits with no walks and six strikeouts. He gave up some hard hit balls late that were right at his defense but got through it. And Matt Guerrier got out of a bases-loaded jam in the seventh and pitched a 1-2-3 eighth.

They are lucky to be just one game behind the White Sox at this point, but the Sox have their own issues too.

There should be an angry team tonight at Rogers Centre as the Twins try to salvage a 6-8 road trip.

“As bad as it has gone, as bad as our luck has been, we’re hoping it will turn and be just as good on the other end,” said Nathan, who threw 45 pitches on Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 4th, 2008 at 10:53 am and is filed under Random thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.