Twins Notes: Tampa Bay Forgets How to Play Baseball

Tampa Bay was on course to a come from behind win in the top of the 9th inning after Twins closer gave up a single to Zobrist and a double to Crawford.  The Tampa Devil Rays should have had runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs on the Crawford double but Zobrist got caught between 3rd and home while Crawford was flying into third on what he probably thought was going to be a game winning triple.  Zobrist made the first baserunning mistake and deserved to be tagged out.

Fine, mistakes happen and now you have one out and Crawford at 3rd base. The Devil Rays would be facing a tough closer but would have had plenty of options to win.  But no, Crawford decides to try to return to second base as Zobrist is being run back to 3rd base.  Twins catcher Joe Mauer tagged out Zobrist and alertly gunned down Crawford at second base.

The Devil Rays are hereby demoted to Low A until they prove they can play professional baseball like, I don't know, professionals.

Disgusting.

The Twins weren't playing ball well today either.  Carlos Silvas, the Twins starting pitcher tonight, had an awesome start going 6 and 2/3rds and not allowing a run.  But Silva's performance and the performance of Twins reliever Pat Neshek were the only bright spots for the Twins pitching staff today.  Juan Rincon looked really bad and the historically lights-out Twins closer Joe Nathan has been struggling this season despite his good numbers. 

Offensively the Twins looked really bad.  If you take out the Cuddyer homerun and the Morneau homerun you basically have nothing left.  The Twins will not win being carried by Morneau and Cuddyer all season.

Twins reliever Juan Rincon gave up 2 runs on 3 hits and a walk in top of the 8th.  A quick pair of strike outs from Pat Neshek allowed the Twins to escape without losing the lead in the game.

Justin Morneau won the game with a solo shot in the bottom of the ninth.  The AL MVP doesn't appear willing to lose his crown without a fight.

A poorly played game is never enjoyable to watch, Morneau's late inning heroics almost made watching the game worthwhile.  Almost.