twin050106

Oh, so lost in Detroit

After an emotionally shattering road trip, the Twins stagger home with hopes for a turnaround after looking bewildered at the plate, in the field and on the pitcher's mound.

By Joe Christensen, Star Tribune

Last update: April 30, 2006 - 11:49 PM

DETROIT - Embarrassed? Of course the Twins were embarrassed.

In all of Major League Baseball, there hadn't been a three-game series this lopsided in four years.

It took an all-circuits failure -- pitching, hitting and defense -- to come up with the sort of historic futility the Twins produced this weekend at Comerica Park.

Just in case anyone had missed the first two debacles, the Twins served up another Sunday, as the Detroit Tigers marched behind Kenny Rogers to a 6-0 cakewalk.

Time of game: two hours, one minute.

Total hits for the Twins: two.

Final score for the series: 33-1 Detroit.

"My whole career, I've never been whooped like this," Torii Hunter said.

Most players haven't. In fact, the last time two teams had been separated by more runs in a three-game series came in 2002, when the Anaheim Angels outscored the Cleveland Indians 36-4.

It hadn't happened to the Twins since April 23-25, 1993, when they were outscored by these same Tigers 45-10.

This time, in an otherwise quiet postgame clubhouse, there were several references to a body's posterior -- getting kicked, getting beaten, and other creative uses.

"We got killed," said Twins starter Kyle Lohse. "... I don't think frustrated is the right word for it."

At least this time -- after the 9-0 and 18-1 blowouts to start the series -- half of the game was close.

Lohse kept it scoreless until the fifth inning, when Marcus Thames hit a two-run homer. Thames entered the series on an 0-for-19 skid, but the Twins fixed that. He homered off Brad Radke on Friday and finished the series 5-for-7.

Thames' homer scored Craig Monroe, the ultimate Twin Killer, who had singled to start the fifth. Monroe is a .370 career hitter against the Twins. Against everyone else, he's batting .253.

Detroit broke it open with four runs off Lohse in the sixth inning. The big hit came when backup catcher Vance Wilson, the No. 9 hitter, dropped a lazy three-run double into right-center field, just out of Lew Ford's reach.

Two of the runners who scored had been hit by pitches from Lohse. In between, Ford had crashed into the right field wall to take an extra-base hit away from Monroe.

"Just a bases-loaded pop fly," Lohse said. "I got to the guy I wanted to get to [Wilson], and he flares it, and it falls."

Earlier in the game, gimpy Tigers right fielder Magglio Ordonez had run down two would-be hits in the same spot. On this one, Ford appeared to get a slow jump, but Twins manager Ron Gardenhire defended him.

"Lew gave it everything he had," Gardenhire said. "It's not like he could have done anything different. We just didn't get it, and it went in the right spot. And that's just the way it's going."

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