Well, it was an “or what” kind of victory. I wouldn’t complain, though.

The Rays tie the game with a double to the wall, a nicely stroked single and a sac fly. The Twins take the lead  when Brian Buscher gets a hit with the bases loaded. The Rays tie the game on a pinch-hit home run off Joe Nathan. The Twins win when Justin Morneau (who’d already gone deep)  smashes a barely beats out a double-play grounder with the bases loaded and one out, thanks to handcuffing the Rays’ second baseman.

Francisco Liriano has his best outing of the season, even though his strikeout pitch disappeared after fanning three of the first eight batters. Again, Gardy offered a maturity opportunity when he sent Liriano back out for the seventh after Tampa Bay scored its two runs in the sixth to tie the game. He got the first two batters, gave up two singles and then Matt Guerrier came in to get B.J. Upton.

Is it nice to have a relief pitcher who can strikeout the opponent’s 3/4/5 guys?

After Monday’s passed-ball silliness, Jose Morales continued to make his case to stay on the roster when Joe Mauer returns — a smart bunt single (not to be confused with Alexi Casilla’s clueless strike-three bunt in the third inning) and the single that started the game-winning rally. Again, the Twins have two ways to make this happen — putting Mike Redmond on the disabled list or sending Carlos Gomez to Rochester. If Morales catches tonight, the Twins could put Redmond on the DL retroactive to Saturday, which was the last time he played.

Morales would give the Twins a switch-hitting bat that seems to be fluid  from either side of the plate. And when Mauer returns, I could enjoy this version of a batting order: Span, cf; Mauer, c or dh; Morneau, 1b; Kubel, lf or rf; Crede, 3b; Young/Cuddyer, rf; Morales dh or c/Buscher, dh; Casilla/Harris, 2b; Punto/Harris, ss.

For now, though, it’ll be interesting to see Gardy’s choices tonight against Scott Kazmir, the Rays’ tough lefty.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 9:16 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.