The Twins dropped three straight at the defending champs to fall to 0-6. They will have to win Monday's Home Opener to match 2015's 1-6 horrible start, which they better do because Tuesday would be an awful time for an off day with the team sitting at 0-7.

The Twins not only have not won, they also have not scored more than 3 runs in a game. They haven't done that in 6 games since last June 6-12. That streak also involved 3 games with the Royals, although this time the series was at Target Field.

As for this series:

THE GOOD

Paying Off: Ervin Santana and Ricky Nolasco were both very good. They gave the Twins what the team was hoping for when they signed them to the two largest free agent contracts in franchise history. Santana gave up 2 runs in 6 innings with 7 strikeouts and 2 walks. Nolasco was even better, allowing just 1 run on 3 hits and no walks with 5 strikeouts in 7 innings.

Park Bang: Byung-ho Park hit his first major league home run on Friday. It was a no-doubter in a difficult park to hit it out of, especially with the wind blowing in. It also broke an eighth-inning tie.

Breaking Out: After going 0-for-Baltimore, Brian Dozier broke out in KC by going 4-for-11 with a home run and three walks.

Vaguely Familiar: Joe Mauer is looking like the Joe of old. He went 4-for-9 with 4 walks and an hbp in the series and is batting .400 with 1.069 OPS on the season. What's most exciting is he has improved is K/BB ratio with 4 Ks and 5 BBs. Prior to concussion symptoms ended his catching career, Mauer had more walks than strikeouts. The last two seasons, Mauer has had 127 walks and 208 strikeouts.

THE BAD

Blown Chances: The lack of offense has been the dominant storyline for the Twins, but the Twins still had two late-inning leads in this series and lost both games. Jepsen blew the lead in Game 1 about 3 seconds after Park's first home run landed with an assist on a questionable dive in left field by Eddie Rosario. Perkins blew the save in Game 3 with another assist on another ill-advised dive by Rosario. So despite the lack of offense, the Twins still should have won this series.

Painful Loss: After getting 4 hits in his first start of the season, Eduardo Nunez got hit on his right arm near his wrist and had to be removed from the game before taking the field in the 10th, which left the Twins with no backup infielders.

THE UGLY

Ineffectively Wild: Trevor May has been racking up the strikeouts, but in the 10th inning on Sunday, he walked the leadoff man, bounced a throw to first to send the winning run to third with no outs, and then, after keeping the runner at third with two outs, he then bounced a breaking ball in the dirt in front of home plate for a walkoff wild pitch.

Offensively Bad: There's not much to say that hasn't been said. It's been bad. The good news is that the offense isn't this bad. At least 5 regulars are well below projections and only 2 are above them. All players go through slumps. It doesn't help when a number of players are going through it at the same time. And because it is the start of the season, everything is blown out of proportion. It certainly would help to ease tensions for the batters if the bullpen could have gotten the team a win or two, but you would like to think these players have been around long enough at multiple levels to be able to figure it out soon enough on their own.

Molitor had suggested starting Torii Hunter in right field, or having him pinch-hit, or sending a replacement out to allow him to walk to the dugout to a big ovation, but the 40-year-old Hunter rejected all such notions. Molitor even called Hunter again Sunday morning to make sure he hadn’t changed his mind, but the veteran said he didn’t want a manufactured “moment.”

“I’ve had my moment,” he said.

This Twins season was full of surprises, but this tidbit about Torii demurring from the spotlight might be the most surprising thing to occur this season. Maybe he is gaining some wisdom in his old age, which makes me believe that he is more likely to retire. Supposedly, we'll find out after the college football season.

As for the game, this had a real spring training road game feel to it. Ricky Nolasco was only allowed 50 pitches and pitched like he hadn't been on the mound in months (which was nearly true). The young kids were all in the lineup with a few veteran bench players getting a chance to play an entire game since most of them hadn't played much this month while the Twins were still in contention.

The highlight of the game was Max Kepler getting his first major league hit on a single to right field. What was real surprising is he was batting third, which should give you some idea of what the Twins feel about his future as a hitter.

As for some end of the year stuff, it was nice to see Sano keep his OPS above .900 despite him cooling off late in the season. It was hard to say how much of that was the hamstring that was bothering him, but still, a .916 OPS at age 22 is pretty much off the charts good.

While it may not be surprising that a middle infielder finished second the team in OPS, the fact that it was Eduardo Escobar probably is to many. He took off in the second half once the Twins finally decided to stick with him at shortstop while All-Star Brian Dozier slumped to a .639 OPS in the second half.

I have some more thoughts on this surprising run later, but I think it's safe to say the Twins are better now than they were at the beginning of the season. I also have some grievances I would like to air, but I'll save that for Festivus.

Just when I think I'm out, they reel me back in.

Okay. That's probably overstated. While the Twins looked very good today in ending a five-game losing streak, I doubt too many fans got too excited over salvaging the final game of an important four-game home series. Unless the Twins go on a serious hot streak to end the season, I imagine most of us will look at Saturday's doubleheader sweep by the Angels as when  we realized that getting into the postseason probably wasn't in the cards this year. The Twins did get back to a tie with the Angels in the standings, but they're still 2 1/2 games back of the Astros with only 13 games left in the season. If the Astros go 6-6, the Twins will have to finish 9-4 just to tie them.

But fans should be excited. Not so much for this season but for the seasons ahead. It should be readily apparent that this team is much better than it was at the beginning of the season.

And I'm not just talking about Miguel Sano. Certainly he's probably the biggest reason. The Twins haven't had a power hitter so feared at least since Justin Morneau took a knee to the helmet in Toronto. And maybe not since Harmon Killebrew left for one sad season in Kansas City. Sano and the Killer certainly have the most similar of skillsets in huge power, great patience and the ability to thrill fans even with one of their numerous strikeouts. Sano showed the power on Saturday with a monster game-tying home run in the 7th inning. On Sunday, he showed his great eye at the plate with two more walks, plus he added a single.

Twins fans expected Sano to burst onto the scene sometime this season, but it is doubtful anyone could see Sano being so good, so fast. Fans also were expecting to see the rotation ace and a great all-around centerfielder and leadoff hitter to emerge from the minors as well. They just didn't expect it to be Tyler Duffey and Aaron Hicks.

Duffey has pretty much come out of nowhere to clearly be the Twins' best starting pitcher at this point. He leads the Twins starters in ERA and xFIP and his K rate of over 8 is the best the Twins have seen since Francisco Liriano was traded to the White Sox. Duffey may not be a "true ace," but if the Twins have 5 Duffeys, they would be tied with the Yankees for second-best xFIP for starters in the AL.

What's made his emergence even more exciting is that so little was expected of him coming into this season. MLB Pipeline had him ranked the Twins' 14th-best prospect and Aaron Gleeman had him ranked 31st. When he was drafted in the fifth round of the 2012 draft, Duffey was considered a Twins typical college pitcher draft pick with great control and not great stuff. Duffey started this season in AA and now Twins fans are pinning their hopes on him being at the top of the rotation in a run for the postseason.

Duffey was a stopper on Sunday, dominating the Angels in seven shutout innings. He only allowed three hits: a bunt and 2 slow dribblers up the middle. He also struck out 7. Maybe the most exciting thing about Duffey is there is little mystery about him. When he gets to two strikes, he's going to his curveball, and it doesn't seem to matter. Batters find it really hard to hit and even harder to lay off. As long as he continues to mix in an occasional two-strike 93-94 mph fastball in there, he'll continue to have great success as long as he's consistently ahead in the count.

As for Hicks, there was a lot of people doubting his ability to hit at the major league level as well. After being the Twins' Opening Day centerfielder the previous two seasons, he began this year in AAA while the Twins used a combination of Jordan Schafer and Shane Robinson in center. With top prospect Byron Buxton looming in AA, the present and future did not look good for Hicks.

However, he got off to a great start and earned a promotion at the beginning of May. While his hitting had improved on his first two disastrous seasons, he still had a disappointing .563 OPS. However, he had home runs in back-to-back games the next two days and took off from there. Since July 4, Hicks has a .793 OPS. He showed his great all-around play Sunday with two walks and a nice sliding catch in the first inning. Perhaps most impressive were his two hits, both from his weaker left side. The first hit he pulled a fastball on the inside corner to right field. The second was an RBI single up the middle on a low and away changeup. The old Aaron Hicks never would have been able to get both of those hits from the left side.

If the Twins are to really turn this ship around and be a consistent contender, they need more of these type of surprises.

Well, that was about as good as it gets.

A great formula for winning is to get the lead early and keep adding on to it and have your starter go deep without ever threatening to let the other team get back in it. The Twins did that on Sunday . The fact that it was against Chris Sale was even better.

It's really bizarre what the Twins have done to Sale this year. After all, he's a great pitcher. No, really. He is!

Only twice all season has Sale been pulled from a start before finishing 5 innings and throwing at least 95 pitches. Both times came against the Twins: on Sunday and on April 30 at Target Field when he gave up a season-high 8 earned runs in just 3 IP.

All this came a day after the Twins played their worst game of this roadtrip. Tommy Milone got knocked out early and the Twins couldn't add any more runs after basically being handed two runs early. Plus the defense had several miscues.

That loss meant the Twins would be forced to beat Sale, one of the best pitchers in the American League, to avoid a demoralizing series loss after winning 2 of 3 in Kansas City against the AL's best team. The Twins also needed to win Sunday to go home with a winning recond on their nine-game roadtrip.

Miguel Sano had an RBI single in the first inning to give the Twins a quick lead, but the Twins didn't stop there. After Trevor Plouffe singled, Torii Hunter had an epic at-bat where he fouled off several close two-strike pitches, two a couple more close ones for balls and then a ripped a fastball into the left-center field stands for a 4-0 lead.

That was more than enough for Kyle Gibson, who had his A game on Sunday. He only allowed 5 hits and 1 walk while getting 7 strikeouts and 15 ground balls in his 7 2/3 innings. The best part was that the Twins only needed one out from Casey Fien and Kevin Jepsen and Trevor May weren't needed at all. If the want to go on a protracted run, they need to be able to get plenty of wins where they don't to use their best relief pitchers.

The bad news was Texas beat Oakland on Sunday, so the Twins remained 1 game back of the Rangers for the final playoff spot. However, who would have thought the Twins would be in such a position with just 20 games remaining. Even better, the Twins play 13 of their final 20 games at home, where they have played great all season. The win Sunday marked the end of a 25-game stretch that included 19 road games. The Twins went 15-10, although the lost a half game in the standings to Texas. However, they did pass Baltimore and the Angels in the standings.

The Twins will open their homestand against the Tigers, who split a doubleheader on Sunday with the Indians. Because of rainouts on Friday and Saturday, Justin Verlander had to pitch on Sunday and won't be available for the series against the Twins. The Tigers also traded away Twins nemesis David Price to the Blue Jays, so the Twins will face Kyle Lobstein, Alfredo Simon and TBD instead. Matt Boyd is a possibility for the third game.

While the Twins are facing the last-place Tigers, the Rangers will be playing host to the first-place Astros, who are riding high after an epic comeback against the Angels on Sunday by scoring 5 runs in the ninth to win 5-3 after there were two outs and no one on base. The Angels and the Astros are going to have a lot to say of who wins the West and wins the second wildcard. The Angels play 11 of their final 20 games against teams ahead of them in the standings. The Astros play 6 with Texas and 4 with the Angels. The Twins only play host to 4 games with the Angels after playing Detroit. After that, they'll be playing 6 with Cleveland and 3 at Detroit and finish with 3 home games against the Royals, who will more than likely be gearing up for the playoffs instead of worrying about regular-season games, although they might be battling with Toronto for the best record in the AL and homefield advantage in a possible ALCS matchup.

This one is going to sting for a while, at least until the next Twins win.

The Twins were on the verge of a very exciting and impressive game and series victory before it all unraveled. The Twins had their best reliever in the game at the right moment and he just didn't have it today. Pitchers have been called effectively wild, but in this game, Trevor May was ineffectively wild. He had a hard time throwing strikes, and once he did, it was hit a long ways by Jed Lowrie (?!)

The Twins will just have to look at this as an opportunity to show how resilient they are. After the Angels shut out the Rangers, the Twins remained just 1 1/2 games back of the last playoff position. Of course, it also meant the Angels are within a game of the Twins. The Twins go from the kettle into the fire now as they go to Kansas City for a three-game series to play the best team in the American League.

It's been a crazy last few weeks as the Twins have gone from nearly out of contention to right in the middle of the wildcard race, mostly on the strength of the bullpen. However, the rotation, which has for the most part been better than expected this season, was becoming a concern with a lot of short, ineffective starts. However, the Twins have now gotten back-to-back terrific starts from Ervin Santana, who's struggled the most, and Tyler Duffey, the Twins' least experienced pitcher that most Twins fans hadn't even heard of prior to this season.

Of course, now the bullpen is once again a concern with Jepsen needing help from Byron Buxton to save Saturday's game and May blowing the lead on Sunday. Meanwhile, All-Star closer Glen Perkins is out with a bad back and showing little signs of improvement.

If I had to complain about something in Sunday's game, it would have been the top of the 7th inning. FSN just put up a graphic showing how Eduardo Escobar had been the Twins' best hitter for the last couple weeks when Escobar attempted to sacrifice bunt against a pitcher he'd already homered against earlier in the game and with the 8 and 9 batters coming up and the slow-footed Trevor Plouffe on second. The Astros got the forceout at third and then Kurt Suzuki and Buxton were retired quickly to end the last chance the Twins had to break the game open. If Escobar had been able to reach base and the Twins were able to extend the inning to bring Aaron Hicks to the plate, it might have been a completely different game. Of course, Hicks hit a leadoff home run the next inning, but the Twins were trailing at that point 5-2.

The other issue was Plouffe was adamant that he was safe at third on the sacrifice attempt because Lowrie didn't have his foot on the base. The Twins apparently decided there wasn't enough video evidence and didn't challenge. However, it was a critical point late in the game. What would be the harm in challenging? If it's overturned, it would be bases loaded and no outs. If not, you just lose your challenge, but at this point in the game, you can still ask for the umps to review a play anyways whether you have a challenge or not. Plus, maybe a long challenge could throw off Dallas Keuchel. It just seemed silly to not challenge, especially with how convinced Plouffe was that he was safe.

Whewwwwwwwwwwwwww!

That sound emanating from downtown Minneapolis on Sunday was one huge sigh of relief following not just a good performance, but a dominant performance from Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Ervin Santana, who pitched 7 shutout innings with 10 strikeouts and no walks.

That sigh no doubt came from Twins manager Paul Molitor and pitching coach Neil Allen, who would be faced with a difficult decision if Santana had another poor outing with Tyler Duffey pitching well and Phil Hughes ready to come off the disabled list pretty soon.

That sigh no doubt also came from the Twins bullpen, who did not have to come into a game before the seventh inning for the first time since August 20.

In fact, that sigh no doubt came from the position players as well as the victory got the Twins to .500 in August, which gave the team just its second nonlosing month of the season. The Twins went 21-7 in May but had losing records in April, June and July.

That sigh also no doubt came from Twins fans as Trevor May got a strikeout to end the game after the Astros came storming back with two outs in the 9th on a long three-run homer and a two-run homer to reduce a 7-run lead to 2, but May made sure that the Astros would not get the tying run to the plate and that closer Glen Perkins would not be forced to come into the game.

But maybe the biggest sigh of relief came from the Twins' front office, who saw Santana finally pitch like the pitcher they thought they were getting when they signed him to the richest free agent contract in franchise history.  Santana's 10 strikeouts were a season high for Twins pitchers, topping the 9 strikeouts done by Kyle Gibson, Phil Hughes and twice by Trevor May, who was the last Twins pitcher to have a 10 K, 0 BB game, on Sept. 14, 2014. That of course was the last time a Twins pitcher had 10 Ks in a game period.

I almost forgot one other sigh of relief, which was the one coming from the emergency responders and medical staff at Target Field once they realized no one had been hit by the screaming line drive hit by Miguel Sano into the left-field stands. A few more of those, and people will be pining for netting placed in front of the outfield stands. Forget about extending it around foul territory.

Just when you think you've seen everything...

I think it's safe to say the Twins have found the smoke and mirrors they seemed to misplace at the end of May. It was just four days ago the Yankees had all but ended the Twins' postseason chances. Now, four wins in Baltimore later, the Twins have vaulted past the O's and the Rays and are now tied with the suddenly reeling Angels just 1 1/2 games behind the Rangers for the second wildcard spot. Plus, the Twins are heading to Tampa to face the Rays, who are a game back of the Twins, for 3 games. The Twins have a chance at their first winning road trip since May 19-24 and have won 3 of their last 4 series, the only series wins they've had since the All-Star break.

The Twins basically did to the Orioles what the Yankees did to the Twins, although the Twins did it in completely different ways. Besides the blowout in the first game, the Twins were the better team in the later innings despite the Orioles generally having a better bullpen. The Orioles only have three losses when leading after 7 innings, and two of those losses came in this series, including Sunday's game.

However, it wasn't like the Twins hit the O's bullpen hard. The Twins tied the game in the ninth on an infield single when the pitcher failed to get over in time on a ground ball to the first baseman. Then came an infield out to advance the runner to second and a two-out ground ball in the hole between shortstop and third base to score the tying run.

The winning rally was the result of two Oriole errors and great hustle by Eduardo Escobar, who went to second base after his slow chopper went under the glove of the shortstop. He then scored when a ground ball went off the third baseman's glove and trickled into the outfield.

In Saturday's game, the Twins used a hit-and-run single, a squeeze bunt to tie the game and a two-out line-drive single to take the lead in the 7th inning. Their only other run of the game was on a roller that snuck through a drawn-in infield.

In Friday's game, the Twins used a sac fly and a pop fly that fell behind a drawn-in infield to score three runs in the eighth inning and win 4-3. The only other run of the game came on a bases loaded walk.

So it wasn't that the Twins were exactly killing the ball in the final three games after scoring 15 runs in the opener. They executed well and took advantage of Orioles mistakes to get just enough runs to win three days in a row.

The real key to the series was the Twins' bullpen. After being just awful against the Yankees, the reliever suddenly could do no wrong. On Sunday, the bullpen pitched 7 1/3 shutout innings with just four hits and two walks allowed and 7 strikeouts. For the series, the bullpen didn't allow a run in 15 2/3 innings. They had 16 Ks with just 5 hits and 4 walks allowed (0.57 WHIP). And this only included one inning from All-Star closer Glen Perkins, who had a couple cortisone shots in his neck after the end of the Yankees series.

What many Twins fans I'm sure were pleased to see was manager Paul Molitor again using his closer in a tied game on the road. This almost never happened under previous manager Ron Gardenhire over 13 seasons. He would inevitably save his closer for a save opportunity that often didn't come because a lesser reliever would lose the game. Of course, Molitor had previously tried using Perkins against the Yankees while Perkins' neck was still bothering him, so he ended up losing the game that was tied. On Sunday, Molitor not only used Kevin Jepsen, who was filling in at closer while Perkins was out, but Perkins himself, who Molitor had previously said he wanted to wait until Tuesday to get Perkins back on the mound. Perkins gave up a couple hits but kept the game tied and ended up the winning pitcher. With just about their entire bullpen used up and not wanting to overuse Casey Fien, Molitor called on starting pitcher Tommy Milone and his sub-90 mph fastball to close out the win. Milone got an assist from Byron Buxton, who made a nice leaping catch at the wall to prevent a leadoff double before Milone buckled down and struck out the next two batters with offspeed pitches, once again proving that having a "proven closer" is overrated.

What is not overrated is how much fun it is to watch Miguel Sano hit. He gave the Twins the early lead on Sunday with a two-run home run in the first inning. It was a rocket of a line drive to right-center field and may have been his most impressive home run to date, considering it was his first home run to the opposite field and the pitcher he hit it off of was nearly untouchable by the Twins after Sano's homer. He also had a double to left in the 11th inning. The Twins only had seven hits and Sano had two of them and they were the only two hit with any authority. If Sano will remember the approach that got him his home run, that could really help him cut down on his strikeouts and help him go from being a Chris Davis-type hitter to a Miguel Cabrera-type hitter.