Slugfest.

Well, it wasn't pretty, but as they say, there's not a category in the standings for style points.  A win's a win, and you take them any way you can get them.

The Twins took an early lead thanks mostly to Miguel Sano and gave it back thanks mostly to Ervin Santana.  While all of his starts haven't been this terrible, it's been over a month since Santana had a good start.  It makes me wonder if he might be hiding an injury.  Not that I expect him to be Clayton Kershaw, but I didn't expect him to be this awful.   It seems like there must be a reason for it.  The reason could be that he's just not very good, of course, but this is the worst season he's had in a long time.

The Twins got a win anyway, thanks partly to another impressive night from the bullpen.  It still seems strange to say that, but it's true.  Five pitchers combined to give up only two runs in 6.2 innings and no runs over the last four innings.  And despite the short start, the bullpen really isn't set up all that badly for tonight.  Duensing, O' Rourke, and Perkins didn't pitch at all, and May, Jepsen, and even Graham could presumably go again tonight if needed.  I guess that's the advantage of having that many relief pitchers on your roster.

The offense had another big night.  Miguel Sano hit his twelfth home run in 188 at-bats.  Projected over six hundred at-bats, that would be thirty-eight homers, which would be pretty neat to see.  Hunter drove in a couple of important runs with a bloop single, Dozier hit a big two-run homer, his twenty-sixth, and Rosario hit his eighth home run for a key insurance run.  Every starter had at least one hit except Joe Mauer, who drew a couple of walks and scored twice.

So, the Twins have won five in a row, and on the road against teams they're fighting for the wild card spot.  A week ago they were in danger of falling out of the race, but now they're tied with the Angels, only a half game behind Texas.  They have a tough task trying to make it six, as they go up against Chris Archer.  Archer is capable of having a bad game, but it doesn't happen very often, as he has quietly become an excellent pitcher.  The Twins counter with Tyler Duffey, aka Duff-Man, who has made two consecutive fine starts.  On paper, it looks like a low-scoring game, in sharp contrast to last night's contest.  But as Kenny Mayne tells us, they don't play the games on paper, they play them inside TV sets, so who knows what might happen?  What we know is that, low or high scoring, it'll be another Twins win!  We're in the midst of our season-ending forty-two game winning streak!  We're still on track for 101-61!