Liriano with a gem against the Angels

Fortunately, I'm able to get this blog started off on a good note with the way the game went Wednesday night, a 7-1 Twins victory.

Francisco Liriano was masterful in his 6 innings of work. A little wild at times, but as a young guy with his stuff, predictably so. Liriano was so good he was working on a no-hitter after 5 innings (Orlando Cabrera had a single in the 6th). However, that was his only hit given up on the night, as he pitched 6 innings, giving up 0 runs, while walking 4 and striking out 4.

Since this is only Liriano's 3rd start of the year, he's still on a bit of a pitch count, although he did throw 104 pitches in 6 innings, which was because he was a little wild. However, an encouraging sign for the Twins is that of 14 outs he got that weren't strikeouts, 12 of them were groundouts and only 2 were flyouts. Needless to say, that's a nice ratio.

The 6 shutout innings brought Liriano's ERA down to 2.11 for the year (more on that in the next post).

In the 9th inning, we had another familiar face as Joe Nathan came in to pitch despite it not being a save situation. However, Nathan was still very sharp, striking out the side on 12 pitches. The shutout inning lowered Nathan's ERA to 2.00.

The victory for Liriano gives him a 4-0 record on the year.

(Photo by Francis Specker/AP)