Twins notes: Molitor bothered by baserunning blunder

Eduardo Nunez is 3-for-3 against righthanded pitching this season, and his third-inning double produced the Twins' first run in Saturday's 4-2 loss to Cleveland when Torii Hunter followed with a two-out double of his own.

Nunez singled two innings later, but that opportunity was foiled by a baserunning mistake — one compounded by some effective subterfuge on the part of Indians shortstop Jose Ramirez — that annoyed Twins manager Paul Molitor.

"Obviously a misplay on our part," Molitor said.

The play began on a one-out, 0-1 pitch to Jordan Schafer, when Nunez bolted on a steal attempt. Schafer swung at the pitch and lifted an easy fly ball to left field, while Nunez was sliding headfirst into second.

Molitor said he would prefer Schafer not have swung, to give Nunez a chance to steal the base. "If your hitter is aware — it's a little tougher from the left side to take a pitch, but it probably would have been a good idea," Molitor said. "But Schafer was kind of in an aggressive mode to get after [Salazar]."

Ramirez met Nunez at second base and pretended to be taking a throw from the catcher, and the move seemed to confuse Nunez. Seeing that Ramirez didn't actually have the ball, Nunez jumped up and started toward third base. Halfway there, he realized that Michael Brantley was about to catch the ball, and Nunez suddenly reversed course and scrambled back toward second base, then first. He was still 30 feet away by the time the Indians were able to tag the base for the third out.

"As a base-stealer, you need to find the ball if you possibly can. We talked about it with Nunez," Molitor said. "… Your responsibility when you're stealing is to know where the ball is."

Not that there were any hard feelings about his demotion.

"I saw it coming. I can count," Thielbar said. "I didn't do what I needed to in spring training to solidify a spot, to be honest. I had some good outings in spring training, but I also had a couple of bad ones, too. There were other guys who were a lot more consistent in spring training. I couldn't really be too angry about it."

He said he has "been working on a few little wrinkles you might see in my next outings," but mostly, Thielbar believes his slider and changeup are back at major league quality. "Everything feels good now."

Joe Mauer pounded a fastball to the warning track in the sixth inning and easily reached second base. It was the first baseman's first extra-base hit of the season — he was the last Twins hitter to collect one — and ended his 12-game streak without an extra-base hit, only two off his career long in 2005.