Efficiency produces victory for Twins

Mark Duncan, Associated Press

Minnesota's Justin Morneau watches his solo home run off Cleveland pitcher Fausto Carmona in the fourth inning.

Nick Blackburn made the right adjustments and Justin Morneau and Co. delivered timely hits vs. Cleveland in the series opener.

By JOE CHRISTENSEN, Star Tribune

Last update: April 25, 2009 - 12:14 AM

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TWINS 5, CLEVELAND 1

Up next: at Cleveland • 6:05 p.m. today TV: FSN (1500-AM)

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CLEVELAND - The Twins never trailed Friday night, and 17 games into the season, it was about time.

After falling behind at least once in their first 16 games, the Twins relied on Nick Blackburn's continued mastery over Cleveland, as their offense delivered some timely hits against Fausto Carmona for a 5-1 victory at Progressive Field.

Justin Morneau drilled his fourth home run, Jason Kubel had another RBI and Delmon Young made a key catch in left field, helping the Twins wash away the bad taste from Wednesday's doubleheader sweep in Boston.

"It was a nice ballgame," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "We swung the bats good against a tough pitcher. Carmona's nasty. His ball was moving all over the place. We were in control, and that starts with your pitcher."

Blackburn (1-1) notched his first victory, allowing one run over six hits in seven innings, improving to 4-0 with a 1.63 ERA for his career against Cleveland.

The Indians came in averaging 6.0 runs per game, ranking third in the American League.

The game's key sequence started in the third inning, when Cleveland strung together three hits to tie the score 1-1. Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson went to the mound and reminded Blackburn to throw more off-speed pitches.

"I'm still just trying to learn when the situation is right to start mixing in curveballs," Blackburn said. "As soon as we started flipping curveballs in there, I got a lot of bad swings."

But first Victor Martinez smacked a slicing liner to left field, a ball that could have caused all sorts of damage with two runners on base.

Young tiptoed toward the ball and made a sliding catch.

"He made a great play," Gardenhire said. "It's not easy. That ball's slicing away from him."

Blackburn retired Travis Hafner to end the inning, and Morneau opened the fourth by sending Carmona's first pitch an estimated 380 feet over the right field wall. Morneau said he was sitting on a fastball, and he got it.

"That pitch he struck me out on my first at-bat, I didn't really want to see that one again," Morneau said. "I was just trying to get the first fastball and get a good pitch to hit."

The Twins also capitalized on an error by third baseman Mark DeRosa that inning. DeRosa threw a ball into right field on a force play at second, extending the inning long enough for Jose Morales to roll an RBI single into left field.

The Twins added two insurance runs in the seventh inning, so it wasn't a classic save situation, but Jose Mijares still impressed with a scoreless eighth inning before Joe Nathan pitched the ninth.

"We love this kid's arm," Gardenhire said of Mijares. "He attacked the strike zone, used his breaking ball. He could be huge for us. We knew that in spring training; it didn't work out, but he could be a big guy in our bullpen."

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