New city, new foe, same listless Twins

The road trip began with an eight-hit effort against last-place Kansas City.

By La Velle E. Neal III, Star Tribune

Last update: August 10, 2007 - 11:50 AM

KANSAS CITY, MO. The Twins were involved in a power outage on Tuesday night during their 5-1 loss to the Kansas City Royals and no, it wasn't the one you're thinking about.

As the Twins displayed their nightly punchless hitting, a long bank of lights at Kauffman Stadium and the JumboTron scoreboard in left field both went out as Juan Rincon faced Billy Butler in the eighth.

A loud pop was heard louder than anything the Twins offense has produced lately. The game was delayed 36 minutes.

Kansas City Power & Light reported that there was a "power drop" outside the stadium. Inside the stadium, the Twins continued their drop, falling 6½ games back in the AL Central.

"It makes for a good headline," said Twins first baseman Justin Morneau, who hasn't homered since July 23. "It's, whatever you call it, ironic."

The Twins have scored five or fewer runs in 16 consecutive games. They haven't homered since Torii Hunter went deep on July 31 a span of 232 plate appearances.

Morneau, who left the game after the delay as a precaution after fouling a ball off his right shin, did end an 0-for-17 skid with two doubles. But the Twins failed to string together hits or even have productive outs.

"When you're scoring one run a night, you don't have many chances to win," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "You have to pitch phenomenal every night, and we're pitching pretty good. But we've got to get picked up by our offense."

Gardenhire tried to end the drought by changing the batting order -- not a tough sell these days.

He kept Jason Tyner out of the order and moved most of his lineup up a spot. That meant Joe Mauer batted second and Morneau batted fourth.

"Changing it up," Gardenhire said. "There aren't many options."

But the new-look lineup produced the same old results as the Twins lost their latest must-have game. Hunter drove in Morneau with a double in the second to tie the score at 1-1, but Kansas City pulled away with a sacrifice fly by Mark Grudzielanek in the third and two runs in the fifth -- RBI doubles by David DeJesus and Mark Teahen.

The Twins attempted a two-out rally in the seventh, when Rondell White was hit by a pitch and Luis Rodriguez followed with a single to put runners on first and third. Alexi Casilla fell behind 0-2, then fouled off a few pitches to work the count to 2-2. But he eventually grounded into a fielder's choice. Kansas City righthander Brian Bannister (8-6) held the Twins to a run over seven innings while Twins righthander Boof Bonser (5-8) gave up four runs over seven innings.

Gardenhire was asked after the game how the power outage affected his team and even he couldn't resist.

"We haven't hit a home run in a while," he said. "Oh, you're not talking about that ..."

La Velle E. Neal III • lneal@startribune.com

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