Minnesota Twins: Regular Season Results – MLB May 2011
The Twins were hammered 3-10 in their first game in the month of May 2011 at Kauffman Stadium. In front of huge crowd, Minnesota was outclassed in almost all departments of the game.
The right-hander Carl Pavano took the loss 2-3, allowing seven runs on 12 hits in just over five innings. Pavano was very disappointed with his effort and after being removed, he took a bat to a trash can in the dugout.
"That's as frustrated as I can get," Pavano said. "It actually felt pretty good. I just kept whaling away with it. The [bat] wouldn't break. I couldn't break a bat in the dugout and I couldn't break any out there [on the mound]."
However, the Twins bounced back brilliantly in the next game, clinching a tight 1-0 victory over Chicago White Sox to restore some of the lost pride. Building momentum, the Twins then defeated Chicago in another close encounter 3-2.
Looking for consistency, Minnesota had a great start to their series against Boston Red Sox. In the first game, they executed their game plan to perfection to secure an impressive 9-2 victory. However, in Game 2, in front of a massive crowd at Fenway Park,
they failed to rise to the occasion. Clay Buchholz came up with a great performance and he provided the Red Sox exactly what they needed.
"I guess they have a cage and he was throwing over there," Ron Gardenhire said.
Twins were unable to come out of the slump as they were defeated 1-3 in the series. Under great pressure, Minnesota was unable to raise their game to the required level in their next series against the Detroit Tigers as they conceded a whopping 19 runs in
two games. The losing streak continued in their three match series against Toronto Blue Jays as well.
In a completely one sided contest, the Twins managed to hit only six runs as compared to 20 achieved by their rivals, the Blue Jays. Hitter Jose Bautista of the Blue Jays made the Twins pay heavily for their mistakes as he smashed three homers in the final
game on May 15.
Twins’ manager Ron Gardenhire said, “Every time we made a mistake, he put it in the seats.”
Minnesota’s poor form continued for the rest of the month as they managed to win only five out of fifteen games. Although they had a good series against Oakland, they fell short of expectations by miles against the likes of Arizona and Detroit.
It seems the Twins weaknesses are being exposed by some of the top tier teams in MLB. It will be interesting to see how the Twins re-organise their team and put in a better performance in their next match-up.
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