Clutchiness.

It's interesting how this works.  Oswaldo Arcia led off the second, with the Twins down 1-0, and struck out.  That's not considered a clutch situation, even though everyone agrees that getting the leadoff man on greatly increases your chances to score.  He came up with the Twins down 1-0, two on and one out in the fourth and hit a three-run homer.  That was considered clutch.  He came up in the fifth with the Twins up 4-1, the bases loaded and one out and hit into a force out.  That was considered kind of a clutch situation, but hey, we had a good lead, so not really.  He came up in the seventh with the score tied, a man on second and two and and singled the run home.  Clutch.

Ricky Nolasco pitched well for six innings.  In the seventh, though, he decided he would tolerate Milwaukee coming back to tie, and so made a few pitches in the middle of the plate, one of which Aramis Ramirez hit over the fence with two on.  It would've been a more comfortable win had he decided not to tolerate that, but then Arcia would not have been able to come through in the clutch in the seventh, so I guess it all worked out in the end.

It was mentioned that Sam Fuld is not far from coming back.  I hope when he does, Santana remains the regular and Hicks goes to Rochester.  I know I keep saying this, but long-term it's not helping either Hicks or the team for him to be a substitute/defensive replacement.  Maybe Hicks will get better, maybe he won't, but it's too early to give up on him.  He needs to play.

I should note that the bullpen did another excellent job.  It seems like we've gotten so used to them being good that we only notice when they mess up.  Fien and Perkins combined for two shutout inning and only allowed a walk.  That's pretty good.

So tonight, it's Kevin Correia against Wily Coyote Peralta.  Correia wasn't exactly dominant in his last outing, but he only allowed one run, which is the main thing.  Peralta has been pretty good this year, although he's coming off a poor outing against the Cubs.  Tonight, the Twins take the series, get back to .500, and continue their season-ending one hundred six-game winning streak.  We're still on track for 133-29!