Twins Pitching Out-Uglies Tigers Defense in 10-6 Loss

The resistible force (Tigers defense) met the movable object (Twins starting pitching) on Friday night, and the latter gave more, as Anthony Swarzak and Francisco Liriano were battered by the Tigers potent offense in a 10-6 loss.

Things started promising enough, as Brian Dozier drilled a two-out, bases loaded double to stake the Twins to a 2-0 lead in the first. It was short-lived, as the Tigers got to Swarzak for four runs in the top of second on the strength of doubles by Brennan Boesch and Alex Avila. They chased him for good in the fourth on more doubles from Boesch and Avila, with an RBI single from Ryan Raburn ending his night with the Twins trailing 6-2.

With the score 7-3, the Tigers defense reared its ugly, ugly head in the sixth, with reliever Brayan Villareal contributing two throwing errors to Detroit's already unsound fundamentals and allowing the Twins to get within 7-5. And that was as close as it would get, as the Tigers got to former starter/current God-knows-what Francisco Liriano in the seventh for three more runs. In Frankie's very limited defense, the 10th run scored when Dozier whiffed on a shallow fly.

The 8th and 9th innings were marked by me begging the Twins to either make a comeback or just end the damn game and soon. The glacial, effective pace of Jose Valverde made sure neither happened.

Studs: Denard Span had a couple doubles. Josh Willingham had a double. Ben Revere had a couple very nice catches in right. Glen Perkins had a 1-2-3 eighth.

Duds: Swarzak was horrible. Liriano was horrible. I can't even get mad at the position players for any mistakes or bad at-bats when the pitching is such a [redacted] [redacted]show. First base umpire Allan Porter missed a pretty clearly safe Jamey Carroll on a close play at first in the 8th, tossed Carroll (his first career ejection, and he's terribly old) for reacting to his bad call, then tossed Gardenhire (his 61st career ejection, and he's terribly Gardy) for sticking up for Carroll.

Day game tomorrow. I hope it's better than this one. Enjoy your long weekend, everybody. Drive friendly.