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American League Game Summary - Detroit At Minnesota

POSTED: Wednesday, July 2, 2008

(Sports Network) - Joe Mauer finished 2-for-4 with two RBI and a run scored, and Nick Blackburn pitched seven scoreless innings as Minnesota rolled past Detroit, 7-0, in the rubber match of a three-game set at the Metrodome.

Delmon Young picked up three hits and knocked in a run for the Twins, who have won three of four. Nick Punto added a pair of hits and an RBI.

Blackburn (7-4) allowed just three hits in his outing, fanning four with one walk to earn his third win in four starts.

"He's good. The ball was moving all over the place," Mauer said of Blackburn. "He threw the sinker real well, and another thing he threw well was the curveball. It seemed like, when he needed a strike, he got the curve over. You need to do that against a team like this."

Placido Polanco had two hits for the Tigers, who dropped the final two games of the series after putting together a six-game win streak.

Detroit's Eddie Bonine (2-1) took the loss, his first major-league setback, charged with seven hits and five runs -- two earned -- in only 2 2/3 innings.

Mauer's two-run double to center with two outs in the third broke a scoreless deadlock and put the Twins on the board. After Justin Morneau reached on a fielding error, Jason Kubel followed by chasing Mauer home with a single to center for a 3-0 game, and Young slapped a single to left that plated Morneau.

Brian Buscher added another run-scoring hit bringing Kubel home for a five-run Minnesota lead, and Punto's single loaded the bases and ended Bonine's outing. Casey Fossum entered and got Denard Span to line out and end the rally.

Punto's two-out single scored Delmon Young, who hit a one-out double, and made it 6-0 in the fifth. Punto, however, was thrown out at second trying to gain an extra base.

Span started the Twins' sixth with a double, went to third on an infield single by Carlos Gomez, then scored when he beat Polanco's throw home after a force out on Alexi Casilla's grounder.

Blackburn retired the last six batters he faced, and yielded to Jesse Crain for the eighth.

The Tigers had runners on second and third with two outs thanks to a Polanco single and double from Ryan Raburn, but Crain fanned Marcus Thames on a high fastball to preserve the shutout.

Boof Bonser wrapped up the game with a scoreless ninth.

"Every time we come here, they seem to have our number," said Tigers outfielder Curtis Granderson. "It's interesting, to win the first one and to lose the next two games. I don't think it has anything to do with them -- they just played better than we did."

Game Notes:

Minnesota has won seven of the 11 meetings this season, improving to 5-1 at home...Detroit lost its first series since being swept by Oakland from June 2-4...The Twins racked up 41 hits over the three-game set, to 27 for the Tigers.

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