Twins Notes: A Circus in Kansas City

This game was all over the place as the Twins and the Royals traded the game lead numerous times.

It was nice to see Mike Redmond, the Twins back up catcher and sometime DH this season, start hitting the ball hard.  Unfortunately he was hitting the ball really hard at people.  He has still been able to get his batting average up past the .200 mark.

I can't count the number of times I've seen teams challenging Michael Cuddyer's arm.  Cuddyer was third in the league last year in assists (with 11) and is well on his way to another great performance as he is leading the American League (Right Fielders) with 4 assists so far this month.  The Royals ran on him this game and got away with it but I'm surprised so many are taking their chances against one of the best arms in the baseball.  Mike Sweeney even tried it and was gunned down at home but lucked out when the ball popped out of Mauer's glove.

Tony Pena, the Kansas City shortstop has got an cannon for an arm.  Wow.

Sideny Ponson, the Twins starting pitcher tonight, doesn't have a gun anymore.  When Ponson underhanded a ball to his first baseman earlier in the game (from the mound) I wondered how confident could Ponson be if he couldn't even flip a ball to first base from the mound on a routine ground ball.  I was right to be concerned, Ponson gave up the game in the fifth inning by allowing 4 ER.

Cuddyer has been smacking the ball.  He hit two line drives that would have been home runs in most other ballparks.  Kauffman Stadium has a lot of space.  Cuddyer later did get a home run in the 9th to make it 11-7.

The Twins have been up and down all season but have somehow been able to win games.  Today it had to have been some of the worst baseball the Twins have played all year.  The Royals also looked really bad but they're sorta supposed to play poorly.

Twins pitching, especially the starter, struggled today.

Twins lose 11-7

Marty Andrade is a frequent contributor to the Bleacher Report and hosts a weekly Podcast on the twins which can be found at BlogTalkRadio.com/andrade