Santana to keep two streaks alive...

[Durango53]

The Twins will shoot for a three-game series sweep, and their sixth straight win, Sunday when they meet the Angels at the Metrodome.

Johan Santana will seek to extend a streak of his own when he takes the mound for Minnesota. Santana has won 17 consecutive decisions and hasn't lost a game since July 11, 2004.

In his previous outing Tuesday at Kansas City, Santana pitched eight innings and allowed one run on five hits with eight strikeouts. In his 33 innings of work, the 2004 Cy Young Award winner has struck out an American League-leading 45 batters.

[Durango53]

GAME: Los Angeles Angels (13-11) at Minnesota Twins (15-8).

TIME: Sunday, 2:05 p.m. EDT.

Johan Santana knows he's approaching the longest win streak in AL history. He just doesn't like to dwell on it.

"I don't really think about it," said the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner, who is unbeaten since last July 11. "I think it's good to know you're doing something special. But I don't put that in my mind. I just want to play the game and have fun. Baseball is my passion. That's what I like to do."

Santana will shoot for his 18th consecutive victory, and fifth straight this season, when the Minnesota Twins try for a three-game sweep of the visiting Los Angeles Angels.

Santana went 20-6 with a 2.61 ERA last year, pitching Minnesota to its third straight AL Central title and taking home his first Cy Young. He is on track to better those numbers this season, going 4-0 in his first five outings, including a sparkling performance in Tuesday's 2-1 victory at Kansas City.

The left-hander allowed a season-low one run and five hits over a season-high eight innings, striking out eight and walking one. He needs three more wins to match Roger Clemens' AL-record run of 20 consecutive winning decisions.

Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire said no one on the team is talking about Santana's amazing streak.

"The only time I hear about it is when you guys ask us about it," he told reporters. "We don't sit around and talk about it. We just say he's unbelievable."

The Twins won their fifth straight Saturday, beating the Angels 4-2 behind 7 1-3 strong innings from Brad Radke. Justin Morneau homered and tripled for Minnesota, which is trying to complete its second straight sweep. The Twins took three straight at Kansas City before opening this six-game homestand.

Darin Erstad went 3-for-4 with a run scored for Los Angeles, which has lost three of its last five games.

[Durango53]

STANDINGS: Angels - 1st place, AL West. Twins - 2nd place, 2 GB, AL Central.

[Durango53]

ANGELS PROBABLE STARTER: Bartolo Colon (3-2, 3.73 ERA). Colon won three of his first four starts before getting shelled for 10 runs - five earned - and five hits, including three homers by Alex Rodriguez, in Tuesday's 12-4 loss to the New York Yankees. The right-hander struck out three and walked a season-high five as his two-start winning streak in which he had allowed just one run over 15 innings came to an end. Colon is 7-6 with a 4.40 ERA in 19 career appearances, including 18 starts, against the Twins.

LAARHP Bartolo Colonhttp://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/112526.jpg
• 3-2, 3.73 ERA in 2005
• 0-1, 7.50 ERA in 2004 vs. MIN

MIN: LHP Johan Santanahttp://minnesota.twins.mlb.com/images/gameday/mugshots/276371.jpg
• 4-0, 3.55 ERA in 2005
• 1-0, 1.29 ERA in 2004 vs. LAA

TWINS PROBABLE STARTER: Santana (4-0, 3.55 ERA). Santana is 1-1 with a 4.19 ERA in seven career appearances, including five starts, against the Angels. He is 1-0 with a 3.86 ERA in two home starts this year.

[Durango53]

OFFENSIVE LEADERS: Angels - Vladimir Guerrero, .351 avg., 5 HRs and 17 runs; Guerrero and Garret Anderson, 19 RBIs; Chone Figgins, 9 SBs. Twins - Jacque Jones, .359 avg.; Torii Hunter, 4 HRs, 17 RBIs, 16 runs and 10 SBs.

[Durango53]

SEASON SERIES: Twins, 2-0.

[Durango53]

STREAKS AND NOTES: Angels - 2B Figgins has hit safely in 16 of his last 17 games. ... 1B Erstad is 6-for-19 (.316) in his career against LHP Santana. ... OF Anderson is 3-for-13 (.231) against Santana. Twins - RHP Joe Nathan has converted eight of nine save chances. ... 1B Morneau has hit safely in six of seven games since returning from a concussion that forced him to miss 12 games. He's batting .483 with a triple, three doubles, two homers and nine RBIs since his return. ... OF Jones is 14-for-38 (.368) with four homers and 15 RBIs in his career against RHP Colon.

[Durango53]

ROAD/HOME RECORDS: Angels - 5-6 on the road; Twins - 8-2 at home.

[Durango53]

Player to watch
Jacque Jones is 14-for-38 (.368) lifetime against Colon, with four home runs and 15 RBIs

[Durango53]

Quotable:
"It's not just going to happen overnight, you have to be patient. They're going to be pretty good. We think we have good infielders who work very hard. No matter who we put out there, we think are very good." -- Twins manager Ron Gardenhire on his young infield

[Durango53]

Quick hits
Since the beginning of 2002, the Twins are 57-49 vs. the AL West. ... The Twins are a perfect 10-0 when leading after the seventh inning and 11-0 when leading after the eighth inning. ... Twins pitchers have allowed 24 first-inning runs through 23 games. They have an ERA of 7.83 in the first inning compared to 3.16 from the second inning on. ... Joe Nathan has not allowed an earned run or a walk in 11 1/3 innings this season. ... Torii Hunter is a perfect 11-for-11 in stolen base attempts.

[Durango53]

On television
• MIN: FSN North
• LAA: FSN West

On radio
• MIN: WCCO 830-AM
• LAA: KSPN 710-AM

[LesPaul]

Darn, I guess all streaks must come to an end :(

Twins 1 4 1
Angels 2 2 0 F

[LesPaul]

GAME RECAP:

Santana gives up two hits, unfortunatly those two hits were homeruns by Guerrero in the 4th inning (his 6th hr) and Molina in the 6th inning (his 1st hr).

Twins had a chance in the bottom of the 8th with bases loaded and one out but guess what they did..........grounded into a double play. How did you guess??? LeCroy came in as a DH and grounded into the dp.

Stewart had the lone run of the game with his 2nd hr of the season with no outs in the 9th.

Minnesota IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Santana (L, 4-1) 8.0 2 2 2 2 7 2 3.29

[LesPaul]

The good thing about the game was Cuddyer coming to the plate with Jones on first in the bottom of the 8th with 1 out. Cuddyer's trend has been to hit into a double play in this situation but he came through with a single that sent Jones to third. Mauer came up next, drew a walk, prompting LeCroy to come in as the DH. Pitching change by the Angels; LeCroy hits a groundball to 2nd; Inning over with bases loaded.

[Durango53]

Well darn. To bad about the streaks coming to a end but the Twins still took 2 out of 3...

[Timberwolf]

I will have a take on the game later tonight. I will watch the game when I come home and give my take.

I am glad to take the series. It would have been nice to get a sweep, but the Angels are not a good team for nothing.

Both pitchers pitched well today for their teams.

It's on with the Indians.

[Timberwolf]

So much for the Twins sweeping the Angels. I thought with Johan out there that it would happen, but that was not the case as they lost 2-1 to the Angels. This loss meant that Johan's 17-game winning streak is over.

I thought Johan pitched a very good game today. Unfortunately, he gave up two HRs and that was it for the Twins. I will live with the solo HRs today though I thought Guerrero's HR was actually a foul ball. It hit the foul territory IMO. Oh well. That's just the way it goes sometimes. Johan did the best he could today and he did a darn good job. In this situation, we ought to tip our hats to Colon instead of focusing on Johan giving up two home runs.The Twins ran into a very good pitching peformance by Bartolo Colon this afternoon. We ought to tip our hat to Colon. He was just super. He was throwing strikes and working fast out there. He did it all. How good was Colon? Colon was Justin Morneau's kryptonite. Morneau has been hitting well since coming back from an injury, but today he was no match for Colon. Just a great pitching peformance by both Colon and Johan.

I did had to lament about the bases loaded in the eighth inning. Twins had a chance to tie this game, but they grounded into a double play as usual. It seems the Twins have grounded into DPs way too much this season. They have to lead the majors. You gotta give Mike Scioscia credit with going with K-Rod in the eighth. That was a good move. K-Rod closed today as he had to get 5 outs (two in the eighth and three in the ninth). That worked out lot of charm. Twins can never hit off K-Rod (Francisco Rodriguez) going back to the ALCS in 2002 where he made his name and you could not have like Lecroy's chances of hitting K-Rod, then again lot of teams can't hit him.

It's sad to see Johan's amazing run of wins come to an end, but it was a great ride. Let's hope he can perform another amazing run and I know he will.

Good job by the Twins and good week overall. Our offense is starting to hit a little sans today's game. It was good to take a series against a team who has dominated the Twins in the Angels.

[Durango53]

They have to lead the majors.
Second with 26.

Gaints lead with 28.

[Timberwolf]

I am shocked the Giants have the lead. Even without Barry, Giants have a good enough offense.

I thought it was very interesting that Gardenhire decided to use the Teamster (Lecroy) as his first option of pinch-hitter instead of Nick Punto. My god how stupid was that. Lecroy is Lecrap. If anyone thought he was going to get a hit off K-Rod, he or she was delusional. You could not have like Lecroy's chances here. I like Nick's chances a little better.

I am very suprised at this decision-making by Gardy. Nick Punto has to be the first option off the bench since he is the team's best pinch-hitter not Matthew Lecroy.

Another thing Gardy was talking about how he is wishing for another hitter. Gee whiz. Had he not been that obessed of having four catchers, maybe we could have gotten Terry Tiffee on the roster.

I like Gardy personally and he has done a good job, but his decision-making is so hideous at times and yesterday was no different.

[LesPaul]

Timberwolf, I got the since while watching the game that Gardenhire wasn't too confident about the decision, he just appeared nervous in the dugout...

Coaches run off their gut instinct. If Gardy was thinkin LeCroy and put in Punto and Punto grounded into the dp then he would be kickin himself. I just think it was a chess match won by Sciosa.

[Timberwolf]

Scioscia is a very good manager for sure. He makes great decisions. He knows how to put his players in a position to succeed while Gardenhire just does not.

I just think Punto has a best shot of getting a base hit than Lecroy.

[Durango53]

Looking at the numbers Lecroy has a better lifetime avg than Punto and better power. And he has 10 more AB's than Punto this year and has a higher avg at .306 to Puntos .262.

I to would have gone with Lecroy.......

[Durango53]

LeCroy, who hit .333 with four homers last season as a pinch-hitter is another reason I go with LeCroy.

It would be though of both ways. Punto goes out and hits in a double play everyone wonders why he left the power on the bench LeCroy goes out there and everyone wonders why he left the hot hitting Punto on the bench.

[Timberwolf]

Lecroy has no power period. I don't care what the numbers tell you. Anyone can have good numbers if he has millions of at-bats. It does not mean a thing.

[Durango53]

Lecory has only had 900 some AB's. And if you aint a good hitter the more AB's you have the harder it is to get your numbers up.

[Timberwolf]

Speaking of Lecrap, how about him striking out with the bases loaded last night. I am so fed up with this piece of crap. I am a better hitter than Lecrap.

[Durango53]

then why is he at and you aint on the Twins? :D

What should the Twins do cut him? And who will replace him? It seems that everyone isnt hitting the best right now.

[LesPaul]

Speaking of Lecrap, how about him striking out with the bases loaded last night. I am so fed up with this piece of crap. I am a better hitter than Lecrap.

as they say, if you wanna throw punches with the professionals put on some gloves and step in the ring :cool:

[Timberwolf]

Twins should have cut Lecrap two years ago. I am so sick and tired of this guy striking out. You realize the Twins cut David Ortiz for this piece of crap? Twins thought this guy had potential to hit HRs like Justin. Unfortunately, Lecrap is really bad. Twins gotta cut their losses with him because it's not working.

Terry Tifee can replace him.

[Durango53]

So because LeCory was putting up better power numbers than Ortiz at the time they still should have cut LeCroy just because? Mark said it himself that the Twins wanted David to change his stance some to get more power but he wouldnt. So he was cut. And then went to Boston where he changed his stance and then the power came.