Al Leiter struggled throwing what seemed like a thousand pitches, but managed to exit after five, only trailing 1-0. Santana was good not great, but held the Yanks scoreless up to that point.
Félix Rodríguez came on in the sixth and did a good job just giving up a hit. My big question is why take him out for Sturtze in the seventh? We have no idea what Small is going to do Thursday morning so why not save Sturtze until you needed him? Enter Tanyon and he quickly gave up three runs and the game in the seventh. His control was awful as he walked two and gave up three hits to push the Twins lead to 4-0.
Enter Proctor and he served a two run homer to J. Jones in the eight and that was that. If Torre is going to use Rodríguez, then use him. Proctor has a good arm, but it's too late in the season to get his confidence going. Pitch Felix in the sixth and seventh innings of games. Why just the one inning stint? If he puts men on in the seventh then you go to Sturtze.
With the A's, Boston, Toronto, and the Twins all winning it was a very bad loss. Now tomorrow's game looms even bigger because we need to take two out of three just to keep up with everybody else.
Here's the Boxscore
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