The loneliest number.

Complete game losses, like dead puppies, aren't much fun.*  The Twins apparently decided to pay homage to the World Cup by playing games with soccer-like scores.  Unfortunately, they keep coming up on the short end of them.

Believe it or not, I was going to use that line before i saw Rhu_Ru's post in the game log.  I guess we were thinking alike.

Who knew Trevor Plouffe was so important to the Twins' offense?  It's probably a coincidence, of course, but the batting went south almost immediately after he left the lineup.  The Twins did manage to score once, showing that they still do remember the proper way to run around the bases.  The box score shows that the run was driven in by Joe Mauer, which is obviously a misprint since everyone knows he hasn't driven in a run since May of 2008.  The at-bats the Twins had in the last couple inning were disappointing, but it looked to me as if the problem was that they were trying too hard.  Everyone was up there trying to hit a game-tying homer, which leads to bad at-bats.  On the other hand, I guess I'd rather have players trying too hard than players not trying hard enough.

It's a shame to once again have wasted a fine pitching performance, but in Hughes' case we're likely to see more of them.  He's on his way to the best season of his career, and I suspect the improvement is real.  He's always been a good pitcher when he was healthy--he simply hasn't been able to stay healthy.  From what I can tell, his poor season last year was a result of trying to pitch through injuries, which worked about as well as it usually does.  I've been critical of the Twins' front office sometimes, but I have to give them a lot of credit for this one.  If Hughes stays healthy he should be a good pitcher for some time to come.

So today, in a day game, our other ace, Kyle Gibson, starts our season-ending ninety-three-game winning streak.  We'll just have to settle for 125-37!