6540 Seconds

That would be the amount of time it took Oakland As starter Joe Blanton to completely dominant the Minnesota Twins offense. In more practical terms, it took one hour and forty-nine minutes for the game to be over and it felt even quicker. A total of 10 Twins hitters got out within one or two pitches while they managed a meager three hits. Of those three hits, one was a classic infield single by Luis Castillo to begin the game and the others were a second Castillo hit and a hard line-drive single off the bat of Justin Morneau. The only other well-hit balls of the night were off the bat of Torii Hunter for outs. It was, in other words, yet another game filled with offensive ineptitude that hopefully did not set back the Twins offense from the last few weeks of success.

As I suggested in yesterday's post, there was a high opportunity for another pitching duel and that is precisely what happened. As bad as the Twins offense was and as good as Joe Blanton was against them, Carlos Silva was very successful in his eight innings against the As offense as well. In those eight innings, the Twins first complete game of the year, Silva gave up only one run, five hits, and one walk while striking out two. It is important to point out that the one run Silva gave up came on a Shannon Stewart double play in the sixth inning after singles by Mark Ellis and Jason Kendall.

Silva looked very good, as he not only lowered his ERA to 3.86, but also showed a good sinker as evidenced by the 16-5 GB/FB ratio he had last night. Sadly, Silva doesn't have much to show for his overall good start this year, as he has a 3-6 record and the worst run support in the AL.

The run of pitching battles won't end today, as Johan Santana will take on Chad Gaudin, who has had a very successful year so far with a 5-1 record and a stand-out 2.32 ERA. With that, we may get treated to another pitching duel that hopefully ends up in a Twins series win.