The Twins started a late rally to send it into extra innings, but fell to Josh Hamilton’s 2 out home run in the top of the 10th for the 8-7 loss to the Rangers. Livan Hernandez’s streak of impressive starts came to an end, and the Twins fell behind often and spent a good part of the game trying to come from behind, even though the team was given plenty of chances to accomplish the comeback.
After falling behind 4-0 after the 1st, the Twins started one of several comeback attempts. With two outs in the 2nd, Carlos Gomez hit a 2 RBI single to halve the lead. Gomez hit a solo homer in the 5th to decrease the Rangers lead to 1. In the 6th after the Rangers scored twice more, Brendan Harris and Michael Cuddyer drew two straight bases loaded walks to make it a 6-5 game. They tied the game at 7 in the 8th on a Justin Morneau RBI single, but with the game on the line in the bottom of the 10th, the team could not get a single baserunner and fell short. Morneau and Delmon Young each ended innings with the bases loaded and the team stranded 16 runners total.
Hernandez’s recent string of success came to an abrupt end. He began his start by allowing 4 runs in the top of the 1st, then giving up 2 more in the 6th, before being pulled with only one out. Matt Guerrier gave up 2 hits and 3 walks in his 1 2/3 innings of work, the run he allowed came when he committed a throwing error that put the Rangers ahead by 2. Brian Bass allowed the winning run when he allowed the Hamilton home run in the 10th.
This has to be a major letdown to the end of the Texas series that started off so promising. Particularly this game, the Twins continued a trend seen many times this season of the team not being able to get that critical hit when it was really needed. Obviously, this is something that the hitters need to fix, but not something they can really work on. They just need keep on focusing and trying again when that next critical situation comes up.
