Santana Dominates in Oakland
Friday night's victory can almost entirely be credited to Johan Santana's performance, with an assist going to Justin Morneau for his 8th inning homerun. Johan gave up a solo homer to Frank Thomas in the 2nd and also gave up a single in the inning. After that he was literally perfect. Not a single Oakland batter reached base in the third through eigth innings. Johan simply dominated, yet remained down by 1 run until the eigth inning.
It looked like the Twins offense was going to get shut down for the second straight night. This night they weren't facing Barry Zito; they were facing mediocre starter Kirk Saarloos. Saarloos gave up just 2 hits through the first 7 innings in a lineup that included Nick Punto leading off and Jason Kubel batting ninth. Fortunately Michael Cuddyer led off the 8th with a single and Morneau came up with a clutch homerun to put the Twins in the lead 2-1.
The homerun set up a save opportunity (finally) for Joe Nathan and he pitched a perfect 9th to extend the streak of perfect innings to 7.
Game Notes
- The Twins had just 5 hits, but 5 walks in the game. The weren't able to turn the walks into runs.
- Joe Mauer was a rare 0-4 in the game.
- Terry Tiffee saw his first action after being called up. He played DH and was 0-2 with a walk.
- Santana picked up 9 K's in the game to put him back into the MLB lead in strikeouts.
Topics: Johan Santana, Justin Morneau, Oakland, Frank Thomas, Joe Mauer, Kirk Saarloos, Barry Zito, Jason Kubel, Nick Punto, Michael Cuddyer, Minnesota Twins
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