Back in the Twin Cities and just in time for the Twins to play one more and leave town for the next 43 years, or something like that. A few scattered thoughts:

*Kevin Slowey looked in good form last night and there was something subtle that was good to see. The second at-bat of the game was a 10-pitch strikeout, which wouldn’t seem to bode well. If oakland had something figured out, Slowey made a pretty good adjustment to pitch seven strong and strike out a career high of 12. I like the rest of the rotation, but if I had to bet on an ace in 20-10, it’s Slowey.

*Randy Ruiz has a better bat than I thought. When I first saw him, it looked to me like he had fine bat speed — for Triple-A ball. (See Garrett Jones.) But he’s looking increasing comfortable in his role as a hitting specialist and, given the lack of right-handed pop, I’m expecting the Twins to find a way to keep him on the roster when Alexi Casilla returns.

*My suspicion is that will be done by telling Adam Everett that his wrist is really, really sore and needs until September 1 to heal. Gardy will go with Punto/Harris at shortstop if everyone is convinced that Casilla is really 100 percent.

*Did anyone else feel sorry for Sean Gallagher, the Oakland starter, last night? Being left out there to give up 10 runs, capped off by the Gomez homer, was exceptionally ugly.

*Can the Mauer/Morneau thing stay hot on the road? When Mauer is in a groove, he’s absolutely amazing to watch. It was impressive last night to see the stat that Morneau has almost as many hits to left as to right, and that most of his hits have been between left-center and right-center.

*If Denard Span had started the season with the Twins, would he be the front-runner for Rookie of the Year?

Day game today. No guarantees, other than that the A’s will see a different Liriano than they did on that ugly April afternoon in Oakland.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 9:41 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.