Twins-Royals: A Deserved Win for Minnesota, a Bit Later than Expected

For 11 and one-third innings the Twins dominated the Royals, but for two terrible thirds of an inning, the game was up for grabs.

Joe Nathan blew his first save in 14 chances, thanks to a terrible play by Delmon Young in left on Mark Teahan's game-tying, three-run, inside-the-park home run.

Young made a diving attempt at the grab, only to have the ball slide by him and roll all the way to the wall, as Teahan sped around the bases like he was being chased.

Nathan's blown save nearly rendered Nick Blackburn's excellent outing moot. Blackburn caried a complete-game shutout into the ninth, but allowed Alex Gordon and Miguel Olivo to reach base. Ron Gardenhire wisely sat Blackburn down, expecting to see his star closer put away the remaining Royals with little trouble.

In the end, the game was saved by two unlikely sources—the bullpen besides Joe Nathan, and Michael Cuddyer.

The much-maligned bullpen showed their best stuff tonight as Dennys Reyes, Jesse Crain, and Matt Guerrier combined to allow just three base runners in their three innings of relief work, allowing the Twins hitters ample time to score the decisive run.

When the hitters finally responded, it fell to the slumping Michael Cuddyer to push the run across. Joe Mauer walked and was pushed to third on Justin Morneau's double. Cuddyer then drove a single into right to put the Twins on top for good.

Cuddyer had his best game of late against a pitcher who had given all of the Twins hitters fits. Cuddyer went 3-6 with two RBI, including the game winner,  making him one of three Twins with three hits.

The Good: Michael Cuddyer: 3-6, 2 RBI. Hopefully this signals the end of a bad month and the beginning of his resurgence.

Justin Morneau: 3-5, R, 2B, BB. Morneau is now hitting .313. He only has one HR in his last 10 games and only four total XBH, but his high average is making up at least some of the difference.

Alexi Casilla: 3-6, RBI, SB. These three had nine of the Twins 12 hits on the night. Casilla is back over .300 for batting average and has looked great during his stint in the majors.

IF (and that's a big if) he can keep these numbers up, he'll make the Twins' choice of who stays up and who goes down when Adam Everett, Nick Punto, and Matt Tolbert come off the DL a very difficult one.

Nick Blackburn: 8.1IP, 8H, 2ER, 0BB, 4 SO. Blackburn was unlucky to only get an ND out of this one. He looked great against the struggling Royals hitters and appeared to have shaken off any lingering effects from his previous outing against the Rangers, when he gave up seven runs with five unearned.

The Bad: Joe Nathan: .2IP, H, ER, K, BS. Nathan doesn't get enough praise here, I'll be the first to admit that. This blown save was hardly his fault, but the fact remains that he was unable to keep the two inherited runners from scoring. In the end, its a moot point, since the Twins won anyway—but next time, they may not be so lucky.

The Ugly: Delmon Young. 0-6, GIDP, 5 LOB. To go with what should have been ruled an error (it was an error in judgement if not in play), Young left the most runners on base and managed to further hinder the Twins chances of winning by grounding into a DP with the bases loaded in the 12th.

There will be games like this. Young is still raw and has only a year in the majors under his belt, but he has definitely been passed by Carlos Gomez as the most promising young talent the Twins have.