Last Friday night, Nick Blackburn had nothing and notched a win. This Friday night, Blackburn pitched seven shutout innings and notched a no-decision. Matt Capps, in what one assumes was an end-of-Gardy's-rope-reaching performance, pissed another game away on a 2-run Eric Hosmer rocket with 2 outs in the 9th, giving the Royals a 2-1 lead that Joakim Soria would not give back.
To be fair, the Twins offense did the pitching staff no favors, with the only run off the not-good Luke Hochevar scoring on a passed ball. Still, with seven solid innings from Blackburn and a 1-2-3 8th from Joe Nathan, Ron Gardenhire turned the game over to Capps, who promptly turned it over to the opponent for the seventh time in 2011. The Twins made it interesting in the 9th. Jim Thome singled and Danny Valencia almost ended it with a long fly out. Delmon Young's single put runners on the corners with one out, but a tapper back to the mound nailed pinch runner Matt Tolbert at home, and Tsuyoshi Nishioka grounded out to end the game.
As Pat Reusse Tweeted after the game, Eric Hosmer has a .180 average against left handers. Matt Capps is a righty. The Twins best lefthanded reliever didn't enter the game. I don't think this will happen again. At least, it better not.
Studs: Blackburn. Deserved to win but didn't.
Ben Revere: three hits, including the very difficult stumbling, somersault triple that you'll likely see on your YouTubes and SportsNights with Casey McNeil and whatnot.
Duds: duh.
Also, most of the rest of the lineup for not being able to hit Luke Hochevar. I had at least three solid jokes built around his last name and his terrible pitching, and now that's all shot to hell.
Enjoy your weekend, everybody. It'll be okay, eventually.