Double Trouble

Bloomington – April 16.  The Mariners and the Twins battled it out in a double header today with the Twins being on the short end of both games.  After taking the first two games of the series the Twins were poised to take the series and stay above .500.  Lack of a bullpen and no timely hitting sunk the Twins to a 6-7 record.

Game 1 had Pole facing the rookie Roger Erickson (1-1), which was a rematch of Erickson’s debut, in which he loss.  Erickson was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 3rd round of the 1977 amateur draft.  Roger gave up 5 runs in the fourth and the sixth innings while only giving up one homerun.  Mauch was thinking about pulling Erickson in the fourth, but since this was a double header and the pullpen was tired from the last two games he decided to keep him in.  Meyer hit a 384 foot 3 run homer to right center that cleared the 370 foot fence, which made it 5-0.  Erickson finally got to 148 pitch count and he had to be shut down.  Pole pitched a complete game and gave up some inconsequential runs in the 8^th and 9^th innings for a 10-2 victory.

Game 2 was House and Johnson and it took 12 innings to complete this one.  Johnson pitched well but on short rest could not get through the 4^th inning. The Mariners racked up 14 hits to the Twins 6 hits and both teams ended up with a pair of errors.  In the top of the 12^th, Cruz got on base when Randall mishandled the ball.  Bochte struckout and Cruz stole second. Stanton followed with a double off the wall that scored Cruz.  Jones then popped up to Carew for the second out.  Roberts put the game out of reach when he hit a 366 foot homer that just barely cleared the 365 foot wall.  Meyer popped out but the Mariners were up 7-4.  House was Ace material giving up 3 earned runs in 11 innings while only walking 2.

Despite the great home stand start the best the Twins could do was finish .500 against the Mariners.  The bullpen is depleted and the offense is not hitting – looks like a recipe for failure.  Hopefully the Twins will get this all figured out before the A’s come to town.