May 8, 2018

Twins win 4th straight after Romero silences Cards

Twins rookie Fernando Romero, who made an impressive major league debut last week, took it a step further Monday after he silenced 40,000 fans at Busch Stadium by striking out nine over six innings. The team backed him with 11 hits and the Twins cruised to a 6-0 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.

Suddenly, things are looking up for the Twins. The club won its fourth straight Monday night and is now 6-4 in its last 10 games and has moved back into second place in the American League Central, 1.5 games out of first place. Despite the injuries to three key players — Ervin Santana, Miguel Sano and Byron Buxton — this team is finding ways to win. The improved hitting of Eduardo Escobar and Eddie Rosario has been a big part of their success of late, especially Rosario, who is hitting .452 with four home runs and 13 RBI in the past seven games.

But the real star Monday was Romero. He scattered three hits over six innings and struck out nine with three walks. He has yet to give up a run and improved to 2-0. With Santana’s return delayed, Romero’s early success for the Twins has been huge.

Jake Odorizzi gets the ball Tuesday in the finale of the two-game series with the Cardinals.

Extra innings…

-Max Kepler, Robbie Grossman and Rosario had seven of the Twins’ 11 hits on Monday.

-The Twins wrap up their series with the Cardinals on Tuesday, get Wednesday off, then hit the road to take on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Shohei Ohtani.

-Cardinals’ fans are serious baseball fans. Even on a Monday night — a school night and the beginning of the work week — more than 40,000 fans attended the game.

-In October 1987, the Twins won their first World Series by beating the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, 4-3. In Game 7, Frank “Sweet Music” Viola struck out seven over eight innings and held the Cardinals to just two runs. Dan Gladden, Greg Gagne and Kirby Puckett provided the offense for the Twins and the team won 4-2 before 55,000 at the Metrodome. Viola was named World Series MVP.

COMMENTS

Hi, I’m Rolf Boone, Twins fan.

I became a fan of the Minnesota Twins after a friendly wager in the early 1980s. I survived Ron Davis, the meltdown in Cleveland, Phil Bradley at the Kingdome and then marveled at a rising generation of stars and two World Series wins in 1987 and 1991. Brad Radke made the 1990s bearable, while Kirby Puckett’s eye injury, exit from the game and eventual death made it almost too much to bear. The new century ushered in more talent — Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, Joe Nathan, Torii Hunter, Justin Morneau — and consecutive seasons of playoff baseball, followed by consecutive seasons of losing baseball. A winning season returned in 2015. So here we are. Go Twins.