Capps bails Twins out of Mijares' mess

TORONTO - The Twins threw out their best-laid bullpen plans Sunday, when lefthander Jose Mijares walked Toronto's first two batters in the seventh inning.

Mijares walked J.P. Arencibia, after getting ahead in the count 0-2, and No. 9 hitter Mike McCoy.

"I don't know how that happens," manager Ron Gardenhire said after the 4-3 victory.

The Twins had hoped Mijares would finish the seventh, with Matt Capps pitching the eighth and Joe Nathan pitching the ninth.

Capps cleaned up Mijares' seventh-inning mess. With two outs and runners on second and third, Jose Bautista came up for the Blue Jays looking for his third homer of the season, after hitting 54 last year. Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson went to the mound. With first base open, Capps could have walked Bautista intentionally to face Adam Lind.

"I learned a long time ago to let your closer make the decision on whether he wants to pitch to him," Gardenhire said. "Start telling him to walk people and things like that -- there's a reason he's your closer. So I told Andy to go calm him down and see what he wanted to do with that guy and go at it. He wanted to get him out."

Bautista nearly made the Twins pay, hitting a rocket right at center fielder Denard Span.

"We don't want to do that to him early in the year," Gardenhire said. "We don't want to hurt him. He's one of our best pitchers. We ran [Glen] Perkins out there, and man he did he throw the ball. He really picked us up big time."

Perkins pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning, setting the stage for Nathan's first save since Oct. 3, 2009.

Mauer restsAfter catching the first two games of the series, including Francisco Liriano's rough start Saturday, Joe Mauer was not in Sunday's lineup.

The Twins open April with 23 games in 24 days, so the Twins will monitor Mauer's playing time carefully, especially since he is coming back from arthroscopic knee surgery.

"There was a lot of balls in the dirt [Saturday], and he was a little sorer than usual," Gardenhire said. "But he was going to play. If I want him to play, Joe's in, but I told him this is a good day to take a break."

"Nishi's a rookie, but he's a veteran; he really knows how to play," Gardenhire said. "I just want him to be forceful out there, being forceful with [shortstop Alexi Casilla]."

Gardenhire pointed to a play Saturday when Casilla went after a ball behind second base, even though Nishioka was closer.

"[Nishioka] kind of backed down," Gardenhire said. "I want him to take charge of that play because he's a really good player, and he can do those things. I told him to come up with some really good word that tells [Casilla] to knock it off, stop."