Not Pretty but a Win

Last nights game versus the Red Sox wasn't pretty, but another quality start and W for Slowey and the lately resurging bullpen won the game for the Twins.  Denard was setting the table but with 14 LOB there wasn't a lot of clutch hitting.

Hopefully Swarzak can continue his good pitching from last start and the clutch hits happen for the Twins today in the finally against Beckett, no small task for the Twins hitters.

No worries about Road just something to prove

Ruesse's column talks about how the Twins have a heavy road schedule ahead, and how we haven't played well on the Road (5-14), also how the Twins didn't take advantage of red hot month of May by Morneau and Mauer.  All of this is easy to point out and one could argue that the Twins will be lucky to be 5 games under 500 by July 1st with such a heavy road schedule in June.  I have a different outlook.  

Break down the May road losses: 

1. Tigers 9-0 -- Blackburn has a rare poor outing and a rookie pitcher (no-one has a book on him) shuts down the Twins.
   
2. Orioles 4-1 --  Rain started and stopped (several times)  game that should have been postponed.
3. Orioles 5-4 -- Tough fought game with Mijares losing with run in bottom of 8.
4. Yankees 4 game sweep -- Tough fought games all 4 were close (3 Yankee walk-offs) - bullpen pitched a lot of innings and couldn't hold off Yankee hitters in homer friendly park.
5. White Sox 2 losses -- Buerle & Danks were good and Baker & Liriano stunk not getting into 6th putting even more stress on bullpen.

So the Twins in May were 2-9 on the road.  However one could argue they aren't playing all that poorly the 4 game sweep at the Yankees could have easily been 2-2 or even a 4-0 the other way... and the rain shortened joke of a game in Baltimore you might as well throw out.  The other Baltimore loss was a close hard fought game.

So I'm not making excuses for the Twins, they need to win on the road.  But if you really look at the month of May's road games we haven't played poorly just were unable to close out games in 5 of the 9 losses, another loss was a joke of a game, so in actuality only 3 of the 11 road games did the Twins play poorly.   Of the 5 close losses 4 were on the overworked bullpen and the other was the start of Perkins decline ending him in the DL.

Essentially the Twins bullpen needs to be clutch on the road, the starters have gone deeper into games lately giving the bullpen a bit of a reprieve,  that will need to continue so the fresher arms in the pen can be more effective.  

I am not overly worried about the Twins winning on the road, they have inter-league games coming up that they have historically been very good in.  Pitching will be the key, getting a minimum of 6 and hopefully 7 quality innings from the starters, and good pitching from Mijares, Guerrier, and Nathan.