By LaVelle E. Neal III, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) –
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – The Minnesota Twins and Tampa Bay Rays settled in for a crisply played, well-pitched, entertaining baseball game — until the Twins put a stop to all of that in the sixth inning.
Some of the bad decisions and bad plays that exemplified last year’s 99-loss team took over at that point, which allowed the Rays to pull away to a 4-1 win.
Twins righthander Carl Pavano and Rays righthander James Shields were the show for the first five-plus innings, with Pavano matching Shields pitch for pitch as he struck out seven over six innings. Shields led the league with 11 complete games last season and finished third in the AL Cy Young balloting.
“Definitely one of the tougher losses on the road trip,” said third baseman Danny Valencia, who missed a couple plays in the field.
“Carl pitched well. We just didn’t score any runs for him. We didn’t really play great defense. That combination is a losing combination.”
The game was scoreless in the sixth when, with runners on first and second, Luke Scott flied out to center. Carlos Pena tagged from second and went to third. Denard Span admitted that the first reaction is to be aggressive and try to throw the runner out instead of throwing to second.
Span missed Pena by a hair. That allowed Evan Longoria to advance to second and put two runners in scoring position.
“Keep the double play in order,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “Keep the runner at first.”
The Twins intentionally walked Matt Joyce to load the bases. B.J. Upton, on a 2-2 pitch, dropped a single in front of Span. Two runs scored. Span tried to get Upton going to third, but the throw hit Upton and rolled into foul territory, allowing Upton to score and make it 3-0.
Alex Burnett replaced Pavano for the seventh inning. He got four ground balls that didn’t leave the infield, but got just one out.
Sean Rodriguez grounded out to start the inning. Desmond Jennings reached first when Valencia fielded his grounder but double-pumped, enough time for Jennings to beat the throw.
Ben Zobrist followed with a grounder to second that should have be converted into a double play. But Jamey Carroll couldn’t handle Alexi Casilla’s hot feed and was charged with an error. The feed could have been better, but Carroll has to get the ball and get an out.
Pena walked to load the bases. Longoria followed with a grounder to third that Valencia mishandled for an error as a run scored. Tampa Bay took a 4-0 lead.
“The ball bounced out of my glove,” Valencia said. “Nothing more to say about that. I should have made the play.”
And that’s your 2011 Twins re-enactment. Shields went eight innings to improve to 3-0, as the Twins finally scored a run in the ninth. The Twins can still come home with a winning road trip if they beat the Rays on Sunday.
“I thought it was good pitchers duel, going back and forth,” Pavano said. “It was a pretty exciting game up until the end, up until I gave up the hit, the ball hits the runner and they get their three runs.”
