Well, that changed quickly.

What's a recapper to do?  Here we were with a long list of things to complain about--the messed-up bunt play, the lack of offense, the Twins playing short-handed again--and the Twins score five runs in the last two innings and actually win the game.

It's fun to win a game late.  It's also fun to get good pitching.  After some poor starts before and after the all-star break, Phil Hughes appears to be back to Staff Ace Phil Hughes, giving us his second straight strong start.  Suzuki hit a key double and Willingham hit what some of us hope will be his last home run in a Twins uniform (more on that later).  The bullpen didn't really blow people away--Fien gave up two hits and Perkins allowed a line shot that Nunez made a diving stab of--but they got the job done, and the Twins left Oakland with a one-game winning streak.

The Twins have made some changes since our last recap.  They appear to have decided it's time for the major league roster to reflect that we're building for the future.  Colabello has been sent down and Correia has been traded.  Trevor May made his first start Saturday.  He was awful, but at least he was there.  While his control has been an issue at times in the minors, it seems likely nerves played a role in his performance.  He won't be Carlos Silva, but it seems unlikely that he'll keep up a pace of 31.5 walks per nine innings.  Tommy Milone pitches tonight, and nerves seem unlikely to be a major problem for him, as he's already established himself as a major league pitcher.

As was discussed yesterday, the next to go should be Willingham.  Will the Twins get much for him?  Probably not.  But he's not doing much for them, and he almost certainly won't be back next year, so even if all that got was cash considerations they'd come out ahead.  And you never know.  Maybe there's a team in playoff contention that feels they need a home run threat off the bench and would be willing to give something worth having.

The rotation is now apparently Gibson, May, Hughes, Milone, and Pino.  Sometime soon Nolasco will come back, and while it's questionable whether he actually deserves to be placed in the rotation we all know that he will be.  Presumably he'll replace Pino, which isn't really fair, as Pino has pitched at least as well as the Twins could've reasonably hoped.  Still, there's no clause in the standard player contract that guarantees everything will be fair, and Pino is the logical one to go out of those five.  He could go into the bullpen, but more likely he'll be asked to pitch Rochester into the playoffs.

So the Twins go to Houston, where the aforementioned Tommy Milone will take on Brad Peacock, who frankly isn't very good.  There are forty-six games left.  Yesterday was the start of the season-ending forty-seven game winning streak.  We're still on track for 98-64!