MIN 9, DET 5: Everybody Hits

Phil Hughes has been having the regression season many expected. Alfredo Simon has struggled his last few starts. Put it all together and it spells Offense!

Here's those two gentlemen's combined line: 7.1 IP, 18 H, 11 R, 9 ER, 4 K, 1 HR, 0 BB. Didn't walk anybody! That is some serious "pitching to contact," right there.

Hughes might have been helped by a rather questionable called strikeout in the fifth. At least batter Victor Martinez thought it was questionable. So he pulled a half-Hunter on home plate umpire Marty Foster, nearly getting manager Brad Ausmus tossed as well. (Maybe Ausmus, who was a catcher for ten zillion years, knows how to tell an ump he's blind without being too offensive.)

Hunter pulled himself a Buck Farmer pitch into the uppermost deck an inning later. It went really, really far, but I still call it "fail" because it didn't leave the building. How cool would it be if someone riding the light rail beyond left field had a baseball thump into the window near their face? Pretty cool. They'd probably die.

Torii also made a catch later which endangered his sunglasses. All-in-all, a fun day for him. And for Dozier. Probably less so for backstops Kurt Suzuki and James McCann. Who wants to bet neither one is in the starting lineup tomorrow?

(Thing I learned about Suzuki today, from the JumboTron: He enjoys free-diving off the coast of Maui to spearfish octupus. Yeah, that sounds about right.)

Be sure and come back Sunday. Detroit will call up youngster Shane Greene to face Twins youngster Kyle Gibson. Maybe the Royals will lose again -- they did today! (But they probably won't very often.) Robot Roll Call: