Fire Gardy

Going into this series I was nervous that the St. Louis Pujols’, I mean Cardinals, would beat us soundly.  Not sure why, they aren’t all that good.  Especially offensively.  Their starting pitching has been exceptional lately, and the Twins seem to be easily flustered if an opposing starting pitcher shows early signs of dominance.  Well, Perkins was the one who was dominant on friday night.  He cruised through 7 innings, giving up 4 hits and 1 earned run.  Granted, the Cards lineup isn’t all that great, but he did get Pujols out a few times.  Nathan gave up a double to start the ninth, but retired Pujols, Ludwick, and Ankiel to end the game.  The Nathan-Pujols matchup was a great one to watch. 

The saturday game was much more forgettable.  Both starting pitchers were gone after the third inning.  Not sure if that had more to do with the heat or what, because Slowey didn’t look that bad.  He didn’t look good either.  The bullpen kept us in the game which is all you can ask for, we just weren’t able to score any runs.  All three game on a Brendan Harris 3 run single.  How often do you see that?  The more exciting news of the day was this:  I was at a bar saturday night and some random girl came up to me and said “Hey you in the Twins hat.  You look just like Glen Perkins! Has anyone ever told you that?”  Good thing he pitched well.  I don’t want to be told I look like a guy who gave up 7 runs in 3 innings or something.  Anyway…..

Sunday was much better.  Joe Mauer was playing, Morneau hit a homer, Liriano pitched great.  It seemed that everything fell into place.  I’m happy that we have started playing better on the road lately.  If we can inch closer to being a 500 road team, and continue to play out of our minds at the dome, we should position ourselves nicely for a playoff push. 

We have two divisional series in a row.  At KC this week, and at home against Detroit over the holiday weekend.  A sweep over the Tigers would be great, but I’ll take 2 of 3.