Twins 8, Cardinals 0: Adalberto Mejia strikes out eight batters

Adalberto Mejia—who’s trying to make his case for the fifth spot in the Twins rotation—started today’s game and looked... pretty darn good. He allowed four hits and had to work out of a couple jams, but he was able to keep things scoreless in his 3.2 innings of work. Oh, and he walked no one and had eight strikeouts.

The Twins broke the game open in the bottom of the third inning, when they loaded the bases for Joe Mauer, who, believe it or not, actually hit a two-run double. Brian Dozier followed up with a sac fly to drive in the third run, and then Max Kepler clubbed his own double—but Mauer was only able to reach third base. No, it’s not because Mauer is suddenly slower than Jim Thome wearing moon shoes, but because Kepler’s double originally looked like it would be caught and Joe was waiting to tag up (and yeah, okay, maybe he’s not quite as fast as he used to be.)

The Twins went on to score five more runs in the game. Byron Buxton had an RBI double that knocked in Mauer. Fun stuff. In the bottom of the seventh, Eduardo Escobar, Matt Hauge, and Chris Gimenez had back-to-back-to-back RBI singles to plate four more runs. It was fun!

As for other pitching, assumed-closer Brandon Kintzler, fast baseball-spinner Ryan Pressly, and veteran-presence Matt Belisle each pitched a perfect frame. Craig Breslow had a good outing too, giving up only a walk in his one inning of work. Taylor Rogers pitched the ninth, and gave up the Cardinals’ first hit since the third inning. That’s bad.

Notes

• Today’s game attendance was 9,538—the most ever for a spring training game at Hammond Stadium.