With just two games remaining in the first half of the season, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said he is perhaps too familiar with his team's second-half schedule.
"I've looked at it over and over again. Not going to be easy," Gardenhire said. "It's going to be a grind, and we'll see how the young guys handle it. The big thing here is our young pitchers, getting up in innings, how they're going to handle all those things." Though the first half wasn't easy on the Twins either -- Gardenhire cited two three-game, one-city, in-and-out trips as especially taxing -- the second half could be worse.
"I thought it was tough," Gardenhire said of the first half schedule, "but definitely (the 15-day trip), I don't know how you can get much of a tougher one."
Because the Republican National Convention is being held in Saint Paul, Minn., this year, the Twins were forced out of the Twin Cities for two weeks leading up to the convention, resulting in a 15-day, 14-game road trip beginning in late August and running into September.
The course of the trip -- four games in Anaheim, three in Seattle, four in Oakland and then three in Toronto -- is even more daunting. It's part of a stretch of 24 road games in 30 total games.
TWINS 3, TIGERS 2: LHP Glen Perkins allowed just two runs in 6 2/3 innings of work and Minnesota's bullpen shut out the Tigers to end the game. SS Nick Punto delivered two of the Twins' three runs with a double and a sacrifice fly.
