So when do the Twins come back from the all-star break?

The Twins were swept by the Rays in three games which, for baseball games, were not particularly interesting.  They weren't blown out of any of them, but you never had the feeling that they were going to come back and win any of them, either.  Yesterday, with the Twins batting in the eighth, Cory Provus remarked that it felt like the Twins were behind by ten runs rather than two.

There were a couple of reasons.  One is that the Twins pitchers gave up early runs, putting the Twins in a hole.  Another is that the Rays have some pretty good pitchers, who are likely to shut down even a good lineup.  A third is that, right now, the Twins don't have a good lineup.  They simply aren't likely to score very many runs off a good pitcher.  Combine those things and you get a sweep.  The Twins at times seemed somewhat lifeless, but I really don't think that's the problem.  When you're constantly behind, and when you're not hitting, you're going to seem lifeless.  I think the effort is there.  It's just that sometimes effort isn't enough.

The good news is that the Twins will face pitchers who are not as good when they play Cleveland.  The bad news is that the Twins pitchers won't be as good, either.  They're throwing Kris Johnson tonight, who is probably as good an option as they have, but that's not saying much.  Tuesday night, ESPN says Yohan Pino will start, while mlb.com says it's TBD.  I assume it will be Pino, who again is probably as good an option as they have.  The thing is that the Twins really have only three starters--Hughes, Gibson, and Correia--who look like they belong in the big leagues.  When those three starters don't pitch well, as they didn't in the Tampa Bay series, the Twins are in trouble, because they're not likely to win games with the back end of the rotation.

The pitcher we'd like to see, of course, is Trevor May.  The problem is that May went on the minor league DL on June 21 with a strained right calf and only came back last week.  He made one start and pitched three innings.  I assume it was a pitch count, because he pitched well enough.  Still, even if they actually want to bring him up, and I'm not sure they do, they're unlikely to do so until he's ready to throw a hundred or so pitches.  So, for now, the Twins rotation will be Hughes, Gibson, Correia and pray for diarrhea.  It ain't exactly Spahn and Sain, but it'll have to do.

At any rate, tonight is the night we start our season-ending sixty-five game winning streak.  Can there really only be sixty-five games left?  My South Dakota math tells me so.  We'll just have to settle for 109-53!