Last Saturday, Zack Greinke held the Twins to one run over seven innings. The Twins lamented their missed scoring opportunities.

This Saturday, the Twins didn’t have many chances against Greinke. But they did plenty of damage when they did, going 3-for-5 with runners in scoring position and knocking Greinke out in the sixth. Joe Mauer opened the scoring with a RBI single off a 94-mph fastball. Delmon Young cleared the bases with a double to right-center for the big blow against Greinke.

Greinke was impressed with Twins hitters - which was quite a statement coming from the likely Cy Young winner.

“Even when they were getting out they were taking good at bats up there,” Greinke said. “The only team that I faced over the years where they…they actually elevate their game when the pressure is on the line. Most teams either stay the same or get tight and try to do more than they can do.

“Delmon Young, perfect example. I threw a fastball to him hoping he would try to get big and hit a home run with it. He just stayed through it and hit it to the opposite field and I haven’t seen him do that a whole lot.

”It shows how relaxed they stayed in pressure situations. And I don’t expect that.”

Greinke gave up four runs in the sixth, the most he’s given up in an inning this season. It broke a run 14 scoreless innings on the road for him. Greinke will finish the season with a 2.16 ERA, second only to Bret Saberhagen (2.08 in 1989) in Royals history.

Joe is going to have all the goodies on the showdown with Mauer. But Greinke did say he enjoyed facing Mauer and liked  being involved in a big game for the Twins.

“Yeah. I thought it was the biggest game I pitched in all year besides maybe the first game of the year because there was so much on the line and it was real serious,” he said.

Other notes

Sunday’s game is sold out.

If there’s a tiebreaking game on Tuesday, it will start at 4 p.m.

Carl Pavano, not Brian Duensing, will start on Sunday. Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said he wanted the veteran on the mound in a big game. I would imagine that Brian Duensing, Scott Baker, Kevin Tapani and Ron  Davis will be ready to pitch if needed.

Nick Blackburn finishes with 205.2 innings, the first Twins pitcher to reach 200 innings since Johan Santana and Carlos Silva in 2007.

Anyone find it odd that Freddy Garcia started for the Tigers against the White Sox last year with the playoffs on the line for the Sox and tonight is pitching for the White Sox against the Tigers with the playoffs on the line for the Tigers?

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 3rd, 2009 at 7:01 pm 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.