The Twinks got back into the win column with a 4 - 3 win over the Kansas City Royals tonight. Scott Baker got his first start of the season and pulled out a win. Scott threw  84 pitches in 6.2 innings giving up 3ER, 7H, 0BB with 2 strikeouts. Manager Ron Gardenhire said Baker was getting his pitches up early leading to the 2 runs in the first and another run in the second for the Royals. Baker was able to make adjustments though and got stronger as the game went along while getting his pitches down in the zone. Baker cruised facing only three batters in each of the next 4 innings. Baker faced 2 batters in the seventh before Neshek came in for relief. This first outing for Baker was very encouraging after battling  a sore back and extended bout with the flu in spring training and not getting many starts. What was especially encouraging was seeing him get stronger in the middle innings.

In the 4th inning and the score tied 3 - 3 the Twins pulled off a suicide squeeze to take the lead. Mike Lamb was on third after a double and advancing to third on Matt Tolbert’s sacrifice bunt. Then with Adam Everett at the plate Lamb broke for home as the Royals’ left handed pitcher John Bale delivered a fastball. Everett was able to deliver with the sac bunt allowing Lamb to score safely.

The Twins played a nice game and it included the following highlights (and lowlights):

• Carlos Gomez continued his hot start going 2 for 3 with a double, 2 stolen bases and a run scored and increased his batting average to .450.
• Joe Mauer went 2 for 4 with 1RBI and 1R while increasing his average to .375.
• Michael Cuddyer went 2 for 2 before leaving the game with an injured hand after sliding into third. Reports were that he suffered a laceration to his hand and a dislocated right index finger. He is day to day until they figure out had bad it is.
• Justin Morneau got his first hit of the year and a RBI to go with it when he singled and knocked in Joe Mauer. On a sour note Morneau also grounded into 2 double plays.
• Pat Neshek pitched to one batter in the seventh and had a perfect 8th inning striking out Mark Grudzielanek to end the inning.
• Joe Nathan gave up 1 hit in the ninth to Billy Butler after getting the first two outs on a pop out and ground out, then he struck out Mark Teahen looking to end the game and collect his second save of the year.

OK, maybe I was a bit corny and predictable on my headline, how many other articles around town will have a similar squeeze play angle on the headline?

boxscore   gameday

Carlos Gomez stole two bases and scored two runs while going 2 for 3 with a walk. His hits included a double and a bunt single where he did a Punto slide (head first) into first base. We know Nick Punto is hard-headed when it comes to the first base slide thing, I wonder if Carlos will continue to do the first base slide thing after Gardy talks to him.  Delmon Young and Michael Cuddyer also had stolen bases giving the Twins four for the game.

Livan Hernandez was the other player of the game going 7 innings throwing 84 pitches while giving up 2 earned runs and 0 base on balls with 1 strikeout. Livan did not dominate but he was very effective, only really getting into trouble in the 5th where he gave up the 2 runs. Twins fans have been hard on the Livan signing and piling on with Livan’s rough spring training. It will be interesting to see if Livan can pull a strong season out of the hat like Carlos Silva did last year after a very poor spring.

Other key plays of the game included:

• Joe Mauer knocking in Carlos Gomez in the first
• Delmon Young stole 2nd and scored on a single by Mike Lamb
• Michael Cuddyer singled driving in Carlos Gomez
• After striking out the first batters he faced and giving  up a double, Pat Neshek whiffed Vladimir Guerrero to end the 8th inning
• Joe Nathan struck out Torii Hunter in the ninth for the second out of the inning in route to closing out the game for  the Twins first win of the season

gameday boxscore  photo gallery