Twins Stomp Royals 19-1
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | R | H | E |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minnesota | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 19 | 20 | 0 |
| Kansas City | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 0 |
Yesterday I asked the question “Is Joe Mauer Okay?”
He answered the question last night in a very loud way.
He’s just fine.
Mauer had 5 at-bats Monday night against the Royals. He got 5 hits to raise his batting average from .295 going in to .305 at the end of the game. With those 5 hits he had 7 RBIs to take him up to 50 on the year. He also hit his 6th home run of the year.
Joe wasn’t the only hot bat for Minnesota. Not by a long shot.
Delmon Young continued to tear things up as well. He went 4 for 6 on the night with an RBI.
Alexi Cassilla went 2 for 4 plus a walk, earning 3 RBIs for himself.
Danny Valencia showed that he wants to be considered in the Twins quest for a solid right handed hitter to play the infield. He went 4 for 4 with 4 RBIs on the night. All four of his RBIs came in one at bat, as his very first major league home run ended up being a grand slam in the first inning with 2 outs.
The Twins hit grand slams in back to back nights with Jason Kubel hitting one on Sunday against the Orioles.
The Twins seemed to be able to do no wrong against the Royals. 19 runs on 20 hits. They took 6 walks. They went 9 for 17 with runners in scoring position.
Somehow in all of that, though, the Twins batters struck out 12 times.
From the mound, the Twins looked good as well. Francisco Liriano had another masterful night, going 7 innings, giving up 3 hits, no walks, and no runs. He struck out 6. He only threw 84 pitches in those 7 innings, but I think Gardy took him out just because there wasn’t much of a reason to leave him in.
Mahay pitched the 8th inning, giving up 1 hit and no walks.
Anthony Slama got some time in the 9th. He still didn’t look absolutely comfortable out there, giving up a run on 1 hit and two walks, but he got himself out of the inning after allowing some base runners without TOO much damage, which is I’m sure what Gardenhire wanted to see.
