Just slipping by

That pretty much describes today's win the best way possible. The Twins slipped by after being dominated all day by Oakland's Rich Harden. Harden pitched eight innings, giving up only one hit, a solo homer to Micheal Ryan (he got a hit? amazing i know) in the third, and striking out nine Twins. The Twins Carlos Silva, following my suggestion, went out and pitched a very good game, lasting seven innings and giving up seven hits and one run while striking out one and walking none. After posting the one measly hit off of the potential future-yearly-Cy-Young conteder Harden, the A's brought in Justin Duschurer, who was an All-Star this year, who proceeded to give up three hits and a run to the Twins in the ninth.

Joe Mauer lead off things with a double and *gasp* Matthew LeCroy came through in a battle with a tough righthander to get an RBI single. Don't expect that to repeat itself too often, but the Twins managed to scrape out a 2-1 on that hit and the pitching of Silva and relievers Juan Rincon and Joe Nathan, who put up great scoreless innings to give the Twins a chance.

Needless to say, there was no real offense this weekend, as the Twins scored a total of five runs while winning the series 2-1 in Oakland. That's impressive in and of itself becaues Oakland was on a historic winning streak, but lets be real and give the thanks and praise where it belongs: To the great Twins pitching staff. With Silva's performance today and Santana's great three-hit shutout on Friday, the Twins came out with a series win before they go into what seemed all year to be the great showdown between the Twins and the White Sox tommorow night. Everything this weekend and this month has been proof that the Twins are lucky to win, to be over .500, and definitely need to upgrade what is supporting one of the best pitching staffs in the AL. The staff won't change much I expect, besides the expected departure of Mays and the possible trades of Lohse and Romero that will give more good pitching prospects that chance they deserve.

Any money saved needs to be spent on a few reasonable good hitters to surround Mauer and Morneau. Hopefully, they can pull out some wins in Chicago and if not a wlid card chance, a spoiler role and a good end of the season to start things off right for 2006.