Thus endeth the winning streak.

One, they say, is the loneliest number.  It's rarely enough runs to win a ball game, and it wasn't last night.  Prior to last year, Jesse Chavez had a pretty undistinguished career as a relief pitcher, but when moved into the rotation in 2014 he pitched well, and he has continued to pitch well this season.

Trevor May pitched well enough.  He wasn't super, and yes, you'd like him to go more than 5.2 innings, but he only gave up two runs on five hits and two walks.  It would've only been one run if the bullpen had picked him up.  I'll take that from my fifth starter any time.  What cost them the game was not the pitching but the offense.  They had a chance in the eighth, when they scored their run and had the tying run on third with one out and Hunter and Mauer coming up, but a strikeout and a fly out took care of that.

Eddie Rosario sat and watched for the second consecutive game.  When he sat for his first game, I thought Molitor was just giving him a chance to catch his breath and get acclimated, but apparently not.  Now, it could be that he's going to play tonight and that he'll continue to play for most of the rest of his time in Minnesota, in which case everything that follows will be rendered irrelevant.  But if Molitor continues to let him sit I'm going to be disappointed.

You're not doing a twenty-three-year-old any favors by making him sit for two weeks.  You're not doing the team any favors either.  I like Eduardo Escobar, but he's not the left fielder of the future.  Maybe Rosario won't be, either, but he has a chance to be.

Dan Gladden theorized (which may be the first time anyone used "Dan Gladden" and "theorized" in the same sentence) that Escobar was playing because the Twins had a five-game winning streak and Molitor did not want to break up a winning hand.  That may be  true, but if so it makes no sense because a) Arcia was in the outfield at the start of the winning streak, so there's already been a change, and b) no one, not even Eduardo Escobar, thinks the winning streak was due to the outstanding play of Eduardo Escobar.  Cory Provus' thought was that it was about this time last year that Escobar got hot, so Molitor might be wanting to see if he'll do it again.  That may be Molitor's thinking--I don't know--but the numbers don't really bear it out.  Escobar did have a fine May in 2014, but he had also hit well in April.  In 2013 Escobar was dreadful in May.  It's not like he has a history of suddenly turning it on at this time of year.

For whatever reason, though, through two games Molitor apparently prefers to see Eduardo Escobar in left field rather than giving a chance to Eddie Rosario.  It's a poor choice.  Again, Escobar's not going to be in the Twins outfield of the future.  Rosario may be.  You don't bring a good prospect up just to let him sit-- you bring up a Doug Bernier to do that.  Let's use these two weeks to see what Eddie Rosario can do.

Tonight the Twins try to get back on the winning track.  Kyle Gibson, coming off two fine starts, goes for the Twins.  Scott Kazmir is scheduled for the Athletics.  He has pitched well in all five of his starts--his most recent one was his worst, but was still a "quality start", six innings and three runs.  Maybe that's the start of a trend.  The Twins offense is not going to score thirteen runs a game, but they're not going to score only one run a game, either.  Tonight we start our season-ending one hundred thirty-five-game winning streak.  We'll just have to settle for 153-13!