No pride necessary in victory full of bloop-and-chop hits

There was a sports columnist from a Dixie daily who used to impress colleagues with the haste with which he was able to complete his work at the Masters and escape from the Augusta National media center.

"What's your secret, Bill?" a Minnesotan once asked.

The gentleman offered a wink, a slap on the back and said, "It's amazing how fast you can get done when you have no pride."

This long-ago quote came to mind as the Twins were climbing back to a season-high 12 games over .500 (54-42) with a 6-0 victory over Texas on Friday night.

The moral of the latest Dome triumph was this: It's amazing how many runs and hits a lineup can accumulate when it has no pride.

The Twins came into post-All-Star batting .307 with runners in scoring position. That was 27 points higher than the next-best teams in the major leagues.

Asked for a theory on this before the game, manager Ron Gardenhire said:

The Twins went 7-for-13 in those situations on Friday. That put the RISP average at .311. And there was no pride involved in how these runs and hits were accumulated.

The Twins scored single runs in the fourth and in the sixth on soft RBI singles by Brian Buscher and Brendan Harris. Both came with two outs and were preceded by soft singles from Delmon Young.

And then came the bottom of the seventh.

"I thought [starter] Kevin Millwood still was throwing the ball well," Texas manager Ron Washington said. "There was a bunt hit [Alexi Casilla] and then [Joe] Mauer's ball ... I didn't think it was hit that well, but it fell in. And then [Justin] Morneau took some tough pitches to draw a walk.

"I thought Jamey [Wright] would come in and get us out of the inning, but it didn't work out for him."

He might never have encountered as many funky things as quickly as he did Friday.

Jason Kubel greeted Wright by fisting a pop fly that landed 40 feet into right field for a two-run single. Young followed with a hard bouncer off the glove of first baseman Chris Davis to score the inning's third run. Buscher punched another soft fly into shallow left for the fourth run.

Four runs, five hits and not a bolt in the bunch -- unless you want to give Young credit for the hardest hit of his four singles.

Maybe the young man from Tampa Bay has been right all along; he spent 3 1/2 months inside-outing the ball rather than driving it toward the seats. Maybe he was just trying to get his bloop-and-chop swing down perfectly, so he could fit in with his new ballclub.

Whatever, the 4-for-4 lifted his average to .294, a point above what he hit as a rookie in Tampa Bay. He also was 3-for-3 in RISP situations, although only one actually scored a run.

Eddie Guardado, the former Twins closer, was sitting in front of a locker in the Rangers clubhouse. He and his family spent the All-Star break staying with the Brad Radke family and hanging out with other former Twins at Lake Minnetonka.

After seeing those familiar Twins faces this week, he spent Friday seeing some familiar Twins baseball.

"We always thought when we were playing in this ballpark, that somebody could beat out an infield hit, and then bloop one in, and we'd have one of those rallies going," he said. "Everything I saw tonight I saw many times before, just from the other bullpen."