Tigers crushed by Twins

After an exciting three game sweep at Yankee Stadium, the Tigers were pounded 11-1 by the Twins in the Metrodome tonight. The Twins had 16 hits including a homer by Brendan Harris and three hits apiece by Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel. Contrary to the final score and hit total though, rookie Armando Galarraga pitched another pretty good game tonight. He allowed 4 runs in six innings but two of them scored because of an error by Carlos Guillen in the third inning.

Most of the damage came against a bullpen that came into the game with a 1.10 ERA in the last 13 games covering 41 innings. Aquilino Lopez had by far his worst outing of the year allowing four runs and six hits in a third of inning. Denny Bautista followed by allowing three hits and four runs in an inning and a third. Worse than that may be the fact that Bautista left the game with some kind of shoulder difficulty. There is no word yet on the seriousness of the problem.

The Tigers looked flat tonight. Hopefully they can bounce back and win the series. The pitchers for the second game starting at 7:10 Saturday night will be Justin Verlander and Scott Baker.

Notes:

Dontrelle Willis had a rehab outing for Toledo tonight pitching 4 2/3 innings and allowing two runs. The positive news is that he walked nobody and threw 51 strikes among his 72 pitches. He will pitch at least one more game for Toledo before they decide whether he's ready to re-join the Tigers.