Sweepless

Its unfortunate, but the Twins couldn't pull off a sweep yesterday afternoon, as the Yankees offense finally came out and crushed them 9-3 on Easter Sunday. Brad Radke apparently has fixed his "first-inning woes," but now he's replaced those issues with second-inning problems. Yesterday, he gave up three runs in the second, which he also did in the start before that. Whatever it is, he's having problems with the gopherball, as he has now given up a total of seven home runs in three starts. (That would mean if he makes 30 starts, he'll be projected to give up 70 HRs. Dang. That would make his former teammate Eric Milton proud.) In other words, it was an ugly start and despite his 2-1 record, he has a 6.63 ERA.

And, to make matters worse, the offense wasn't too great yesterday and didn't give Radke the type of help it gave him in his other two starts (the Twins scored 20 runs in his two previous outings). The offense managed three runs off of Chien-Ming Wang, one of them being unearned due to the horrible defense Hideki Matsui plays in left field (just like Saturday night. Nice throw, Hideki). In seven innings, the Twins had seven hits off of Wang, but struck out eight times. You can thank Rondell White in large part for that. Four trips to the box and three return trips due to K's. Folks, I think its about time to let him sit a little. Rondell is trying WAY to hard and that would account for the disgusting .085 average he holds.

Of course, seventeen men left on-base isn't a great stat to see either, even if the Yankees did the same. The Twins had their chances and don't let Luis Rodriguez's or Justin Morneau's two-hit days let you forget about the strikeouts they had in key situations.

But, let's not forget this is the Yankees offense and coming out of the last two series 5-1 and owning a .500 record are great things to have. Just a week ago, the Twins were 1-5 and things looked awfully grim. Of course, the next two opponents (Angels at home, White Sox on the road) aren't exactly slackers either. the Twins can take two of three from the Angels and at least one at U.S. Celluar, that would be an accomplishment. A sweep in either series would be particularly helpful in this rough early-season schedule. Let's just hope the Twins can keep playing with the flair and energy they played their last six games with.