Two in a row!
Lorenzo Cain hit a two-run homer in the first inning, and everyone thought "Here we go again". But no, the Twins were not going to be denied on this day. Kennys Vargas came up and won the battle of the Vargases (Vargi?) with a two-run homer of his own to tie it up in the second. The Twins gave the lead back in the third, but not to worry, they regained it in the bottom of the third and got an insurance run in the fourth.
It was 5-3 for an uncomfortably long time. It was uncomfortable mainly because we knew Tommy Milone was not likely to go deep into the game, which meant it was going to be up to our bullpen to hold the lead. Milone was okay--not great, not terrible--but I doubt that anyone was feeling too confident when Tim Stauffer came into the game in the sixth. Stauffer got his man, though, and Molitor was smart enough not to push his luck by asking him to get a second one. Aaron Thompson pitched a scoreless inning, Casey Fien went 1.1 scorelessly (pitching two days in a row, so apparently his shoulder is okay).
It finally stopped being 5-3 in the eighth, when Kurt Suzuki surprised us with a two-run homer and Joe Mauer hit a sacrifice fly. That made it 8-3 and meant that Glen Perkins, who had been warming up to pitch the ninth, could sit back down and Brian Duensing came in. Duensing, loyal teammate that he is, did not like seeing Perkins cheated out of a save opportunity, so he created one by giving up a couple of runs. Perkins dispatched the two men he faced with relative ease, and the Twins had their second straight victory.
As we predicted, Molitor once again batted Hunter second and Dozier fourth, and once again it resulted in a Twins win. Under Gardy, going two-for-two like that would justify using that lineup for the next three months. We'll see whether Molitor does things the same way. I don't have a big problem with it--as socal pointed out yesterday in a comment, lineup construction does not make that much difference anyway. If Hunter is more comfortable hitting second and it doesn't mess Dozier up to bat fourth, then fine.
So now the Twins take their two-game winning streak into a series against Cleveland. Corey Kluber, who was last year's Cy Young Award winner, is scheduled to go against Mike Pelfrey, who....wasn't. Supposedly, Ricky Nolasco isn't too far from coming back, so Pelfrey may be pitching for his spot in the rotation. No reasonable person would expect the Twins to win tonight, given that matchup, except for one thing: it's baseball. Odd things like that happen every day. Maybe one will happen for us tonight. We're still on track for 156-6!