That was easy.
You score 10 runs in a game, you should win rather easily on most nights, but the big story for this one was Kyle Gibson, who was the first Twins pitcher to throw a pitch in the seventh inning. He wasn't allowed to finish it after allowing a hit and a walk and with the top of the lineup up, but I would have liked to see him allowed to work out of that jam for at least another batter or two.
It looked pretty easy, but Gibson will need to avoid so many walks and miss some more bats before we can get real excited about it. It looked like he was having trouble locating his fastball tonight and was having to go offspeed a lot to get strikes. If so, it's encouraging that he was able to make that adjustment and pitch well without his best stuff.
The Twins still haven't hit a home run with anyone on base, which is stunning because they were second in the AL in OBP coming into this game, so it's not like they haven't had plenty of chances. The Twins are second in the AL in runs scored despite being near the bottom of the AL in slugging and very little production from Mauer. They'll also be without two guys they are counting on for a lot of production as both Oswaldo Arcia and Josh Willingham have been placed on the DL. Of course, the Twins took this opportunity to bring up another pitcher in Michael Tonkin so when Florimon is batting in a key spot in the game, most games the choice for pinch hitter will be between Chris Herrmann, Darin Mastroianni and Eduardo Escobar. If you use Herrmann or Maestro, then you'll have to also use Escobar to play defense after that, meaning whoever is not used will be the last guy on the bench and will only be used in an emergency. If you use Escobar, then you have to ask why Escobar didn't start for Florimon in the first place since Escobar is known for his excellent glove. Maybe not quite as good as Florimon, but not enough to make much difference.
Oh well. Twins win, so it's not a time to focus on negative things. The Twins are now 4-3 in non-home openers and they don't play anymore home openers this season.
This game was so much
Sorry if I stepped on your stuff, socal. I had not done recaps of Friday or Saturday's games last week, because I saw that others had signed up for them, but I did not notice anyone else doing one on those days, either (if I just missed it, I apologize). My intent was just to pick up days that no one was doing one. So, I'll go back to laying out on Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday games and let the people who signed up for those days do them. And if someone wants to sign up for some of the other days, that's great, too. I never intended to monopolize this stuff, and am actually just as happy to let others do them.