Right-hander Nick Blackburn admits he's still learning. The Twins are just happy he's so easy to teach.
After sailing through Cleveland's batting order once Friday night with ease, Blackburn stumbled during his second time through. Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson went to the mound to tell Blackburn to use his changeup and curveball to keep the hitters off-balance, walked back to the dugout and watched Blackburn throw a curve and a change as his next two pitches. "Still just trying to learn when the situation is right to start mixing in curveballs," Blackburn said. "Once we did that we had the hitters off balance and everything went well."
The minor adjustment was all Blackburn needed. He cruised to a seven-inning, one-run, six-hit first win of the season. He's now 4-0 with a 1.30 ERA in five career starts against the Indians, and Friday watched his 2009 ERA drop from 5.71 to 4.44.
"With (Blackburn) throwing like he was, there weren't too many tough innings out there where he had to really pitch out of a lot of jams," manager Ron Gardenhire said. "That's a good hitting baseball team, and he did a really nice job. That's what this team's all about, starting pitching, and we need a lot of it."
TWINS 5, INDIANS 1: Minnesota worked RHP Fausto Carmona for five runs on eight hits and Justin Morneau homered for the fourth time this season as the Twins took a 1-0 lead in this three-game series.
