JULY 26, 2009 -- MINNESOTA 10, LOS ANGELES 1

The Twins exorcise some demons on Sunday, hitting three home runs (two by Justin Morneau) and riding starter Anthony Swarzak to an easy 10-1 win. At this point, the rookie Swarzak is pert' damn near the top starter on this team, and though I mean no disrespect to Anthony, that's not a good thing for the Twins. Nick Blackburn has responded to Ron Gardenhire's extra rest and pitched like a batting practice pitcher since the All-Star break, Francisco Liriano is the same bad pitcher that he was in April, Glen Perkins is probably going to move to the bullpen when Kevin Slowey is ready to come off the disabled list, and Scott Baker has been wildly inconsistent all year long. Twice on the road trip, Swarzak has stepped up and stopped the bleeding; the first in response to the Oakland Disaster, when he pitched seven strong innings and kept the game close enough for the Twins to win in extras, and now on Sunday, when he helped save an overtaxed bullpen by throwing 122 pitches in six plus innings, giving up only four hits and one run to an Angel lineup that had been working on all cylinders. To his credit, Swarzak has shown that he can pitch very much unlike a 23-year old rookie on the mound. He does tend to walk a few more batters than is to be accepted here at the Twins, but other than that, he's been more than adequate as a minor-league call-up; in fact, he's outclassed many of his mates on the pitching staff.


Perhaps the biggest hit in the game on Sunday was a two-out, two-run single by Nick Punto, who snapped a 1 for 18 slump with that single which put the Twins up 4-0. Denard Span would follow a batter later with a two-run single of his own, and the Twins chased Los Angeles starter Ervin Santana in the fourth inning. Punto was twice the beneficiary of poor official scoring on Sunday, but when you're hitting .205 and playing mediocre shortstop, you need all the breaks you can get, or you should hope that some idiot organization would pay you some ridiculous amount of money -- like three, four million dollars a year -- to replicate the same pathetic numbers that you have put up in the past (wait...that last part is actually true; damn you Bill Smith!). In the sixth inning, Punto lifted a medium-deep fly ball (it was almost a line drive -- dare I say Punto sort of hit the ball hard) that Reggie Willits and Gary Matthews Jr. let drop between them (see left), and the play was inexplicably ruled an RBI-double for Punto when in reality that's a ball that needs to be caught every single time. And Punto should have been charged with two errors in the seventh, as he stupidly dropped a routine liner to short stop and made Swarzak have to leave the game instead of completing seven innings; two batters before that, Punto had been charged with an error on a routine throw to first base. It just goes to show you that this is a guy who just can't put one solid all-around game on his resume. He's got to screw up somehow, and when it does happen it's not pretty. I liked Punto's quote after the game, though, when he said that "it's been an inconsistent year for me, to say the least." Inconsistent? No, that's not it; actually, Punto's been a shining example of consistency (consistently pathetic, that is). Inconsistent? Please. I've got another term for it, and it's not exactly PG-rated, buddy.


The Twins now return home to face the Chicago White Sox, fresh off losing three out of four to the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park. The Twins will be the first team to face Mark Buehrle following his perfect game last week against Tampa Bay, but first they have to deal with John Danks, and unfortunately for the Twins, it appears as if Glen Perkins will pitch tonight. Ron Gardenhire made it seem like Perkins' last start (1 inning pitched, eight earned runs) was because of a bum shoulder, but he's made that excuse a few times this season. Managers shouldn't lie for their players like that -- Perkins has to man up and accept the fact that he sucks, and Ron Gardenhire needs to acknowledge that himself and juggle the rotation to ensure Twins fans that they aren't subject to watching that poor imitation for a pitcher do his "act" in front of tens of thousands of fans.