MVN - Most Valuable Network

Texas no match for Perkins

This score may have indicated an easy Twins’ win on Friday night, but don’t be fooled by the score.

For six innings, Twins starter Glen Perkins had to be good to maintain a Twins’ 1-0 lead. It’s rare that Texas gets shutout.

Perkins did that, and he was rewarded with some extra runs in the next two innings. The Twins scored a run in the sixth and four runs in the seventh to make this game a laugher.

The Twins cruised through a 6-0 victory over the Texas Rangers to start the post-All-Star break. This win improves Perkins’ record to 7-2.

The question facing the Twins in the second half of the season relates to how their young starters fare down the stretch.

Perkins is one of those starters that have to pass the test if the Twins want to be considered a contender.

If this performance was an indication of things to come, the Twins are going to be in good shape heading to the fall.

The fact that Perkins threw a shutout, allowing three hits in six innings, was impressive especially against that Texas lineup.

Perkins was successful because he got many groundouts, and he got Josh Hamilton, Ian Kinsler and Michael Young out. The only Texas hitter that had success off Perkins was Milton Bradley.

For the most part, he was not in jams. The only time he was in a jam was in the sixth inning. He walked Michael Young and Milton Bradley. With Young at third and Bradley at first, Texas could have tied the game or take the lead with one swing of the bat.

Marlon Byrd had a long at-bat with Perkins. Perkins’s pitches were fouled off. Perkins was laboring out there, but fortunately for him, Byrd hit a groundout to end the threat.

That’s all she wrote for the Rangers after that.

That inning was his best performance of the night because he did not give in. He could have been frustrated when home plate umpire Joe West called couple of Perkins’ pitches against Bradley as balls. He was composed out there, and he did what he had to do which is finding a way to throw strikes and get out of the inning.

It seems that he knows how to get out of jams as of late. This is a sign of progress as far as his career goes.

After that inning, the Twins picked him up from there with the bats.

Talk about the offense winning this game, but it would never be possible without Perkins’ performance.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 18th, 2008 at 10:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.