Twins sweep Tigers—Series recap; Sheffield and fan in Boston

From the Seats, April 15, 2005

MINNEAPOLIS — The Twins finished up a sweep at the Metrodome of the Detroit Tigers, the same Tigers that have Dmitri Young as a designated hitter who said that the Central Division would come between the Tigers and Indians before the series started. Interesting enough those Indians lost the series to the White Sox and the Tigers were swept by the Twins.

 

Tuesday night the Twins had to beat Troy Percival, a guy the Twins had not scored an earned run off, ever, not in the 10 years, 43 2/3 innings he had pitched against the Twins had he given up an earned run. Until the 9th inning in a 4-4 tie Tuesday night when Lew Ford singled to center followed by Cuddyer who flew out. Punto pinch hit for Rivas and drew a walk and on the first pitch Stewart doubled to center scoring Ford and winning the game.

 

Wednesday night the Twins scored 5 runs off Jason Johnson in the first inning, the only out he was able to get was Shannon Stewart fly out to start the inning. His night ended around 7:30 giving up all 5 runs in 1/3 of an inning. Twins never looked back winning 8-4.

 

Thursday night the Twins found themselves in another hole, 2-0 after Radke gave up early runs on a base hit and sac fly. In the second inning Twins got the scoring started by putting up two runs on the board from some clutch base hits. The third opened things up as the Tigers had an error by Infante giving the Twins the chance to put up 3 runs in the inning and win the game 10-4.

 

All three of the games the Twins gave up a first inning run, Mays, Lohse and Radke all giving up at least one run, and Radke giving up two. For all nine games the Twins have played in they have started out behind, the only game a team has not scored a first inning run was the third one of the season in Seattle with Carlos Silva on the mound. But the Twins bats are working and they have 6 come from behind wins, the bullpen that has been rock solid is a big reason for this.

 

Allen Trammell played down Young’s comment on Wednesday nights pre game show saying that the Twins are the team to beat and they have respect for the Twins. He added that he thought it was important that if Young wanted to say that kind of stuff that he put his name to it, as he did. Allen Trammell is a class act, besides the time last year when he accused the Twins of using the circulation system in the Dome to the Twins advantage. I refer to that as “Silly Allen Trammell” and we don’t see much of that. This guy knows what he needs to do, and said it is a lot like what the Twins have done but just have not been able to get over some humps, one this year being injuries to Guillen and Ordonez. Good luck Allen, this is one of the managers I do like.

 

Cleveland bound

 

Twins are off to Cleveland for a three game series against the Indians, who have struggled offensively until last night when they came back to beat the White Sox to avoid the sweep. Santana, Gassner and Mays will take the mound for the Twins, I would look for a good series, tight games that should come down to bullpens.

 

Garry Sheffield

 

If you have not seen the play you have not watched ESPN or the news. If you have not seen the play you have not logged onto any baseball web site. Garry Sheffield playing right field at Fenway Park in the 8th inning is trying to get a ball against the wall when a fan brushes or hits his face, making him thing he has a busted lip.

 

Before throwing the ball in Sheffield shoves the fan, or maybe throws a punch, hard to tell, but he interacts with the fan before throwing the ball back. Gets the ball back in and then goes back to the fan. According to Baseball Tonight he was going to slug the fan, but didn't. He held back, according to him he kept his composure. So ESPN and Baseball Tonight praise him for doing nothing more.

 

Sheffield had already retaliated with the fan, already went over the line before going back to do nothing more. A security guard who came to the rescue quickly prevented a lot of things from happening.

 

Sheffield needs to be suspended for 5 games for this, without pay and needs to get slapped with a fine. This type of thing can not be tolerated by baseball.

 

The fan needs to be taken care of too. He was ejected from Fenway but that is not enough. Beer sales need to be stopped sooner, around the 5th inning. Fans need to be ejected and given a fine for interfering with play and suspended for one year from the ballpark.