Jason Kubel walked slowly out of the clubhouse tonight, he left knee wrapped up. He fouled a pitch off the knee in his first at-bat.

When manager Ron Gardenhire rushed out and asked him how he felt, Kubel could only say, “Nope!”

“It felt like it did when I initially hurt it,” said Kubel, who tore three ligaments in his knee when he collided with Ryan Raburn during an Arizona Fall League game in 2004. “It felt heavy and I couldn’t move it.”

It felt much better after the game, of course. He said he’ll see what he can do before Wednesday’s game.

Justin Morneau said his right inner ear infection started during the plane ride back from Detroit a couple weeks ago but really started bothering him Monday.

“Tried to play and it just wasn’t better,” he said. “It’s about the same (Tuesday). It’s one of those weird things..it felt good when I woke up this morning. When I started moving around I started feeling dizzy again.

“He (the doc) gave me some new drugs today so, hopefully, I feel better tomorrow.”

It’s a tough time for Morneau and Kubel to go down. If they can’t play Wednesday the Twins will have a two-man bench of Mike Redmond and TBA. Who will DH?

Jesse Crain, who played at San Jacinto JC and the University of Houston, has thrown 18 scoreless innings in his career against Texas, including 8.1 scoreless in Arlington.

And Joe Mauer is on fire, batting .485 this month. His 25 homers are three behind Morneau for the team lead.

He’s batting .383 to lead the American League. Ichiro was 4-for-5 Tuesday and is second at .365.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 12:27 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.