Good Medicine

In the wake of their three-game calamity at home against the Angels, the Twins were in need of a good long outing from a starting pitcher to erase memories of a roundly dreadful performance from their rotation over the weekend. Even more, they were just in need of a sound victory to wash the whole sour taste left by that ugly sweep out of their mouths.

They got both last night, courtesy of Scott Baker and a lineup that was able to crank out 10 runs on 16 hits. The refreshing laugher came at the expense of a deconstructed Indians club that has pawned off two of its three best players in the past week.

Hey, we'll take what we can get.

Six members of the Twins lineup notched multiple hits in last night's game, as nine of the team's 16 hits went for extra bases. Joe Mauer doubled three times, Orlando Cabrera continued to impress his new teammates with a pair of doubles himself and Carlos Gomez snapped an offensive cold spell by coming a triple short of the cycle. Meanwhile, Baker was terrific, allowing only three hits and a walk while striking out four over seven shutout frames. It was just the second time in his past nine outings that Baker was able to complete seven innings -- something the Twins will need him to do much more down the stretch if they wish to stay in contention for the division title.

An astonishing 40 of the Twins' final 56 games come against AL Central opponents, and many of those will be against the Indians and Royals, who are arguably the two worst teams in the American League. In order to have a shot at the postseason, the Twins will need to take care of business against these clubs like they did in Cleveland last night.