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Around the Horn: Rookie Road-bump

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(AP Photo/Jim Mone)

Season Record: 26-28

Up Next: Indians (12:10 CT, 6/4)

It wasn't quite as easy for Anthony Swarzak in his third trip to the mound; after breezing through his previous two outings rather easily, Swarzak hit his first road-bump in the majors. The 23-year old rookie lasted only four innings, allowing nine hits and five runs as the Twins fell to the Cleveland Indians 10-1 in the second game of a three-game set at the Metrodome. 

Swarzak's troubles stemmed from two-out hitting by the Cleveland lineup. After making quick work of the first and second innings, Swarzak ran into trouble after he retired the first two batters in the third. With two outs in the books, Swarzak allowed six consecutive hits with Jhonny Peralta's three-run homerun being the big blow. The inning would eventually end for the young righty, but not until he used 35 pitches. Two-out hits did Swarzak in during the fourth inning as well; a single and a double ended the rookie's night after four innings and the six-run outing raised his ERA to 4.76 in three starts.

With reigning Cy Young winner Cliff Lee on the mound for the Indians, the Twins never had much of a chance after climbing into an early hole. Denard Span collected the team's first two hits, but the Twins were never able to produce a rally until the seventh inning when Jason Kubel was hit by a pitch. 

Brendan Harris singled to give the Twins a leadoff threat with a 6-0 deficit, but Delmon Young followed by chopping the first pitch he saw into the ground for a double-play. Carlos Gomez lined a pitch back up the middle to end the shutout, but the one run wasn't nearly enough and the Twins fell to 26-28 on the season.

The biggest excitement for the Twins came when Gomez was retired on a fly ball to right field in the bottom half of the fifth inning. After bunting a two-strike pitch foul in his first at-bat, Lee yelled toward Gomez as he retreated to the dugout. When Gomez turned around after the fly out in the fifth, he was greeted with Lee yelling at him once again - this time about "swinging the bat". Gomez wasn't happy and went at Lee, only to be restrained by Indian's first basemen Victor Martinez.

The incident stemmed from a game last season when the Twins put a string of bunts together against Lee. While the Twins exploited Lee's fielding ability with an Alexi Casilla bunt later in the game, it was about all they did in the lopsided loss.

Let us know: Which way is better, this game story style or the previous style of three keys to the game? Just leave your thoughts in the comments. Also, please send questions, comments and everything else to alex@secretsofthecity.com.

2 Reader Comments

billiam11:42am
Jun 4

i like this more, actually!

Alex Halsted  url12:03pm
Jun 4

I think this is what we're going to do for a while at least. I think it's better to do a game story as it allows you to get some of the key stuff from the game and maybe an inside story that you might not have seen if you didn't watch the game (such as the Gomez incident).

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