Where they're at

Looking at the standings on an off-day:

The Twins lost Wednesday's game. That's 81 losses on the season, half the scheduled games.

For much of June and July, and at least occasionally since then, the broadcasters have talked about the Twins "getting back to .500" (as if they'd been there since the season started) and then into contention. Well, if they do get "back to .500," the season's over.

The tragic number is eight. Eight Twins losses/White Sox wins, and Minnesota is mathematically eliminated.

The Twins have the worst record in the American League, but it's close. Minnesota is 56-81; Cleveland, which was in first place as late as June 23, is 58-79; Kansas City is 61-76. The Twins' next two series are at home against the Indians and the Royals; they could be as high as third place by this time next week, but that's unlikely.

But that's their ceiling for 2012 -- third place in the weakest division in baseball.

As matters stand, the Twins have the third worst record in baseball. Houston has 95 losses already; the Twins aren't going to beat them to the first pick next June. The Cubs have 86 losses. I may be overly optimistic, but I think the Twins have a better chance of catching the Royals in these final 25 games than of being overtaken by the Cubs.

All. Tied. Up.

The tragic number is still 2. The magic number is 2.

The Twins are 85-76, and the Tigers are 85-76. One game to go.

This is a better race than the 2006 one — not because the teams are better, but because they aren't. In 2006, the loser still made the playoff field — and wound up in the World Series. This year the loser gets to go home and sulk.

Ron Gardenhire is going with Carl Pavano on short rest today against the Royals rather than Brian Duensing. I'd rather go with Duensing, but what do I know? Gardy's spent the last three weeks or so making right move after right move, many of which I doubted at the time.

He decided to install Matt Tolbert at third base. And Tolbert hit .333 — and slugged .444 — in September. (Just to put it in context: Joe Crede's slugging percentage this year was .414).

He embedded Delmon Young and Jason Kubel in the outfield corners, had Michael Cuddyer fill in at first base for the injured Justin Morneau, rode Nick Punto at second base, turned the DH job over to a platoon of Jose Morales and Brendan Harris — and relegated Alexi Casilla and Carlos Gomez to reserve roles.

Young hit .309 last month and has eight RBIs in the last two games. Punto hit .292 in September and, more important, had a .407 OBP. And Cuddyer has not only hammered the ball at the plate, he has played smoothly at first.

The Dome will be rocking today.

And in Detroit ... well, one ought not put too much weight on Web site commenters, but these fans seem pretty down on the Tigs.

When to pitch Duensing

The tragic number remains 2. The White Sox did their part for the Twins — Jake Peavy was brilliant, and Edwin Jackson continues to slide — and the Twins managed to survive some sloppy defense and middle relief work.

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Over at ESPN.com, Rob Neyer is first-guessing Jim Leyland's plan to start Alfredo Figaro today against the White Sox.

Neyer is quite willing to concede that starting 20-year-old Rick Porcello on short rest is not a wise option. His suggestion: Start Justin Verlander on short rest and follow, if needed, with Porcello on Sunday.

I suspect that the Tigers ruled that out on the basis that they want Porcello to have at least a full week off after his 111-pitch outing Tuesday against the Twins.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the Twins options with their starting pitchers.

Nick Blackburn starts today on three days rest. Brian Duensing is penciled in for Sunday.

There are three possible situations for Sunday.

A) The Tigers have clinched.
B) The Tigers remain one game ahead.
C) The Twins and Tigers are tied.

If it's scenario A, Sunday's starter will be of interest only for statistical purposes.

Under B or C, however, the Twins might be inclined to use Carl Pavano on short rest — definitely so if Duensing is used in relief today, which is a possibility considering how hard Ron Gardenhire used the bullpen the past few days. (Pavano pitched less than five innings on Wednesday, Scott Baker went just five on Thursday, and Jeff Manship was pulled Friday with one out in the sixth, so the bullpen has had to get 36 outs the last three days.)

Here's a question: Who would you rather pitch in a one-game playoff Tuesday: Pavano or Baker? Baker's the better pitcher, but ... Baker has four starts this year against Detroit; he's 1-1 with a 6.75 ERA, 20 innings; over three years, 2-3 (10 starts), 4.17 in 62 2/3 innings. Pavano is 4-1, 3.00 this year against the Tigers.

So, two choices: Duensing on regular rest on Sunday, with Pavano or Baker available to start a Tuesday play-in game, or Pavano on short rest on Sunday and Baker — who doesn't match up as well against the Tigers — for the play-in game.

Because, face it — if Gardenhire is unwilling to start Duensing against the Royals in a crucial game, he's not going to call on the rookie for the play-in start either.

Game 4: Angry Young man

Tragic number: Still 2. The cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die ... for at least another day.

A weird game indeed Thursday, starting with the pregame flap over the video supposedly showing Joe Mauer stealing signs and relaying them to Jason Kubel. If he wasn't, it won't hurt in in the long run if other teams think he does; if he was, shame on Gerald Laird for using such transparent signals that Mauer can pick them up immediately.

Or perhaps, as I told a Detroit fan who happens to be my supervisor, he can't use camouflaged signs with Justin Verlander pitching lest he confuse Verlander.

Anyway, on with the weirdness. Marcus Thames got hit by a hanging breaking ball from Scott Baker; Thames took offense and retaliated with a cheap shot slide far from second base with an elbow aimed at Orlando Cabrera's crotch. The umpire at second, Lance Barksdale, could have — should have — ruled it a double play. He didn't, so tensions got to mount a bit there.

Then Jose Mijares had some sort of brain cramp. Apparently he was peeved because the Tigers were taking bases through defensive indifference. (Note to Mijares — if your manager doesn't care if they take second base, you shouldn't care either). So he threw a pitch behind Adam Everett. Had he buzzed Thames, I think people would have understood. This one was just stupid. So the umps warned both benches, and Jim Leyland got ejected on the same principle that frequently gets Ron Gardenhire ejected: Their guy throws at us, and you're going to eject our guy if we retaliate? That's stupid.

So then Jeremy Bonderman threw behind Delmon Young and nailed him in the back knee, and Young knew who to blame. Mijares. We had the odd spectacle of a hit batter about to charge his own dugout. (Photo above).

Menawhile, Bonderman and Laird got ejected, Bonderman for throwing at Young — which everybody knew was coming — and Laird for telling the umpire how stupid it was to throw out Bonderman. Which it was. The guy who should have been ejected was Mijares.

Call this game a monument to stupidity and leave it at that.

Game 3: A must-win loss

Tragic number: 2

It would be an exaggeration to say this was the game for which the Twins got Carl Pavano.

They traded for Pavano in early August because they needed somebody to stabilize their starting rotation, and he did that.

But part of the attraction was his 3-0 record against Detroit while pitching for Cleveland, and he added another win against the Tigers since joining the Twins.

But his domination against Detroit fell apart Wednesday.

And now the Twins face this bitter reality:

After a three-week stretch in which they ate up almost all of what had been a seven-game lead by the Tigers, they must win Thursday afternoon or watch the Tigers celebrate in front of them.

To win the divisional title outright, the Twins must win out — and the Tigers must lose out.

Game 2: Tigers 6, Twins 5

Tragic number: Four.

Tuesday split doubleheader was an example of how the Tigers have remained in first place since May. They've been challenged, but they haven't broken, as the White Sox did in late August-early September on a death-march road trip through New York, Boston and Minnesota.

Or, for that matter, as the Twins did after a couple of difficult losses on a long West Coast road trip in July.

If the Tigers hold off the Twins this week, we shouldn't look so much to this game with regret as the game of July 18 — when R.A. Dickey tried to sneak a fastball past Ian Kinsler with the game on the line. Or the game of July 19, when the Twins staked Nick Blackburn to a 12-2 lead and lost 14-13, with the final out coming on a blown call at the plate. And the four losses in five games that followed those two shouldn't-have-happeneds.

The Twins keep grinding though. It's difficult to believe that they touched up Justin Verlander for four runs the way he was overpowering hitters the first five innings. But Brian Duensing had his worst start — five runs allowed in 4 2/3 innings, and Bobby Keppel didn't help a whole lot.

Facing Verlander is a lot like facing Zach Grienke — it's not easy to get the win. The Twins theoretically have the advantage in the pitching matchups the next two games. They need to win both. A split of this series does them no good.

I'm looking forward to seeing Eddie Bonine pitch Wednesday for the Tigers. Besides my tendency to root for my fellow Eddies, he is said to throw a knuckleball, albeit not as his primary pitch. There used to be a lot of pitchers who threw a knuckleball as a changeup, but that approach died out sometime in the 1960s.

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Other news:

*The Pioneer Press says the Twins have a deal with Miguel Angel Sano, a supposedly 16-year-old superprospect from the Dominican.

This signing, once finalized, would be significant as an indication that Minnesota is becoming a major player in the Dominican market. The Twins have scouted Dominica, and they've traded for players (Cristian Guzman, David Ortiz, Francisco Liriano) as a result of their scouting, but they haven't signed amateur players there.

*Chuck Knoblauch, once the Twins best player and then the resource upon which then-general manager Terry Ryan used to trigger the revival of the team, has been charged in a domestic battery case.

* The White Sox will not use Mark Buehrle against the Tigers in the season-closing series — he'll make his final start on Wednesday in a make-up doubleheader — but will pitch Jake Peavy against Detroit. This is good for the Twins, as Buehrle is struggling now and Peavy dominated the Tigers last week. The Sox's scheduled starters: Peavy, Freddy Garcia and John Danks.

Thanks, Ozzie.

Game 1: Twins 3, Tigers 2 — and Porcello

The tragic number remains at six after the first game. A lot of twists and turns — a sloppy first few innings by Nick Blackburn followed by 12 straight outs; a failed suicide squeeze in the ninth; and a 10th inning homer allowed by Joe Nathan after the Twins scored twice in the top half of the inning.

The Tigers started Rick Porcello (left), the 20-year-old who opened the season as Detroit's fifth starter and ends it as their second-most reliable starter.

And so the question: Should he be the AL Rookie of the Year?

Pitchers seldom win the prize, but this has been, literally, the season of the rookie starter — there have been more starts by rookies this year than in any season since the 1800s. And yeah, there are more games, period, but the trend is there.

Porcello — 14-9, 4.04 — has been, arguably, the best of the bunch, even though he's worked all season on a short leash. He's made 30 starts but worked just 165 innings — 5.5 innings per start — and only four times been allowed to exceed 100 pitches. (He threw a season high 111 pitches Tuesday.)

Heavy exposure in the majors is usually hazardous to young arms, and Porcello entered the season with just 125 minor league innings on his resume, all in High A ball. But Jim Leyland has been successful at the tricky task of prying valuable innings out of vulnerable arms and keeping them healthy. He did it a few years ago with Justin Verlander, and he recognized years ago that Livan Hernandez could be pushed beyond the workloads of most youngsters.

Porcello has room to improve. His BB/K and K/9 rates — the two things I most want to know about a pitcher — are unimpressive at best. But he is establishing himself as an extreme groundball pitcher, the kind of pitcher the Twins always imagined Carlos Silva to be, and he may be the rare pitcher who can get by striking out less than five men per nine innings. More likely, he'll add strikeouts as the reins are loosened. And, of course, if he stays healthy.

So: Is he the Rookie of the Year? Well, I'm not sure that he's had a better season than Texas shortstop Elvis Andrus, whose hitting stats don't connect to the value of his glove. Andrus may

not win the Gold Glove — it generally takes players a while to establish their superiority to the managers and coaches around the league — but I'm convinced that he's the best at the position in the league.

If I had a vote, I'd probably go for Andrus, but I'm not certain I'm right. I know this: I'd take either one for the Twins in a heartbeat.

What next for Liriano?

The tragic number is six headed into the Motown Showdown, and it's pretty clear what Minnesota needs out of that four-game series: A sweep.

If the Tigers win three (or four) of the four games, they clinch. A 2-2 split leaves the Twins two games out with three to play — and one of those three will be against Zach Grienke. Even a 3-1 series win only pulls the Twins into a tie with Detroit.

At least the Twins won't have to deploy their fifth starter in that series. Francisco Liriano got the call Sunday and displayed the same basic problem he displayed for most of the season: No command of the fastball.

Five outs, four baserunners, three runs — a three-run homer to Yunisesky Betancourt, which might be excusable if the man could actually hit — and just 24 strikes in his 45 pitches.

A quick hook, and deservedly so.

Not that Jeff Manship was a while lot better in his long-relief outing at throwing strikes — 66 pitches, 32 of them balls. But Manship at least got 11 outs and only allowed one run.

It ws, in fact, a very un-Twins like day on the hill; Bobby Keppel threw nine balls in his 19 pitches. Of the four guys who pitched Sunday for Minnesota, only Jesse Crain pounded the strike zone.

Assuming that Friday's game — the next, and final, time this spot in the rotation cycles around — matters, who should Ron Gardenhire call on?

He can't, right now, have any faith in either Liriano or Manship. But they remain the best options; Gardy sure isn't giving another start to Armando Gabino. Pick one, pull him fast, and make it a bullpen game.

My choice would be Manship. But I'm not in the clubhouse, and I'm not looking in their eyes to see who's afraid to fail. One danger is putting an "unready" prospect in a key game is the long-term damage a bad game can do to his psyche.

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Meanwhile, out in Chicago the White Sox

a) beat the Tigers and

b) still didn't get to watch football.

Win first, football later

Tragic number update: Seven. The Twins won Saturday, and so did the Tigers, who bounced back from a 5-0 White Sox lead to win 12-5 and set Ozzie Guillen off again when he found his team watching college football games on TV afterwards:

"[Do] they think the season's over for them? Yes. If they think the season's over for me, no. And I'm going to make it clear. It's a bunch of [bleeps] out there watching football games like a piece of [bleep] with no pride the way they [bleep] play, and that's embarrassing."

And a few more choice sentences, the upshot of which may be: If the White Sox players want to watch NFL games in peace after their game with the Tigers today, they'd better win.

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The Twins haven't faced Zach Greinke this season. That changes today. The presumptive AL Cy Young winner is to finish his season with two starts against Minnesota.

I suspect that, if the Twins are to win the division title, they will need to find a way to win at least one of the the Greinke games.

Detroit has faced Greinke five times and won two of those five games — despite the fact that Greinke's ERA against the Tigers is 1.00.

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Poll results: Some blog readers believe.

We had 21 votes in this week's poll. Ten (47 percent) said the Twins will win the AL Central; nine (42 percent) said the Tigers; two (9 percent) said it doesn't matter 'cause the Yankees will win the first round easily.

The new poll is actually multiple polls —MVPs, Cy Young, Rookies of the Year. The Monday print column will be on Joe Mauer and the AL MVP race. I hope to blog in the coming week on the other awards, but I suspect a flu bug is about to grab me by the respiratory tract, so we'll see how energetic I am.

Losing two-hitters and Eddie G.

The tragic number remains at eight. Tigers lose, Twins win, and Detroit now leads by two games with nine to play.

Normally it's a good thing for a starting pitcher to allow just two hits. Not in these games.

Robinson Tejada allowed the Twins just two hits, but one of them was a homer, and the hard-throwing righty walked seven while getting just 13 outs. He threw 82 pitches, and 40 of them were balls. One of them was a wild pitch that scored Nick Punto from second base (photo above).

And for Detroit, Eddie Bonine gave up two hits in 6 2/3 innings, but one of them was a homer that followed an error — and his mound opponent, Jake Peavy, showed what all the midseason fuss was about with seven shutout innings. The White Sox bullpen — now without closer Bobby Jenks — added two more shutout innings, and Chicago wins 2-0 with just two hits for the entire game.

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One of my favorite Twins is hanging 'em up after the season — Eddie Guardado, Everyday Eddie. A great first name. And a pretty good pitcher.

He was around for the lean years in the 1990s and he played a big role in turning the franchise around in the early part of this decade. He's bounced around since leaving the Twins for a big free-agent deal, and he's pitched for years with his throwing shoulder hanging by a thread.

Tom Kelly persisted in viewing him as strictly a LOOGY. One of the first things Ron Gardenhire did when he took over was declare Guardado his closer. It seemed odd, as he didn't have "closer stuff." But he was more effective in that role than he had been as a specialist.

He had command of his fast ball, a good palm ball, and never seemed afraid of anything out there. That was enough.

He is, at the moment, tied with Cy Young in career appearances. With more than a week to go, he should be able to get into at least one more game.

And anybody beating old Cy in any career category was doing something right.

Managers of the future

Tragic number update: Eight. The Tigers had just enough padding on the scoreboard in Cleveland Thursday night to survive Fernando Rodney in the ninth inning.

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It's a rather pointless exercise, but I sometimes try to guess what current players will someday become major league managers.

It's pointless because relatively few of today's managers had long major league careers as players. Consider the five in the AL Central this year. Ozzie Guillen had a real career as a player. Ron Gardenhire had a brief major league career — 285 games, one season as the Mets regular shortstop. Eric Wedge (Cleveland) had 39 games in the bigs, which was 39 more than Jim Leyland (Detroit) or Trey Hillman (Kansas City).

Still, I see three guys on the Twins current roster who I have no trouble imagining as big league managers some day.

Michael Cuddyer appears, at least from this distance, to be an effortless leader, a guy who knows when to ease the tension (magic tricks) and when to focus his mates on the job at hand. Certain metro columnists have drunk deeply of the Torii Hunter-is-a-leader Kool-Aid, but it appears to me that Cuddyer is better at the job, because he buys into the Twins approach completely.

Mike Redmond, unlike Cuddyer, fits one of the two prevalent molds for managers — he's a catcher, and thus has some experience working with pitchers as well as the offensive side. He's also seen Leyland work up close; the LaRussa-Leyland branch of the managerial tree rooted in Ned Hanlon and John McGraw has already proven influential in the field.

Nick Punto fits the other mold — pepperpot infielder. (Cuddyer would represent a strain popular in the 1960s and relatively rare today — an outfielder/first baseman who can project an air of quiet strength. Think Walt Alston or Gil Hodges.)

My guess is that Cuddyer would be the best manager of the three, but that's strictly a guess.

It's entirely possible that none of them would even want to try it. Each has made a few million dollars, and the prospect of riding the buses in the Midwest League while learning the ropes generally holds little appeal to those who don't really need the job.

Going left: Duensing, Buehrle and Anderson

Tragic number: Nine. Into single digits now — but it's only gone down four in the past week. Twins and Tigers both won Wednesday. Twins are off today (Thursday), Tigers have Justin Verlander going against a no-name Cleveland starter.

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Brian Duensing had his worst start since entering the rotation on Tuesday — he didn't finish the sixth inning, gave up nine hits and four runs. He still got the W.

In the process, he a) had his first home run allowed since Aug. 11 and b) had the first runs scored while he was on the mound since Aug. 28. (The only runs charged to him in his four previous September starts came on Sept. 8, when he was pulled with the bases loaded and Jon Rauch allowed all three to score.)

At one point during Wednesday's telecast Dick Bremer suggested that Duensing was comparable to Allan Anderson, a Twins pitcher in the late '80s and early '90s. Anderson led the AL in ERA in 1988 (16-9, 2.45) and saw his stats deteriorate rapidly from there (17-10, 3.80 in '89; 7-18, 4.53 in '90; 5-11, 4.96 in '91; then out of baseball at age 28).

There's a substantial difference between Anderson and Duensing, or at least the Duensing we've seen so far. Anderson for his career struck out 3.7 men per nine innings, with a peak during his time in the rotation of 3.9 K/9; Duensing so far is averaging 5.7 K/9.

Anderson's K-rate was never high enough to allow him a long career; Duensing's might be. (As I've noted before, however, Duensing's K-rate so far is higher than he had in Triple A, which suggests that he's not really this good. Plus he's had just one strikeout in each of his last two starts.)

Bert Blyleven suggested Mark Buerhle as a Duensing comp, which, considering how ineffective Buehrle (above) was on Wednesday, might not have appeared all that encouraging.

After Buehrle's perfect game this summer, I wrote a print column extolling Buehrle's future. A couple of months later, there are hints that he's reaching a career crossroads. His fastball velocity Wednesday was in the low 80s, his strikeout rate this season is near a career low, and the White Sox are publicly insisting that he revise his offseason condition work (and he's in agreement).

But Buehrle's 30 years old and has 134 wins. Duensing is 26 and has five. When Buehrle was 26, he had his fifth season of at least 14 wins and 220 innings.

Buehrle's early-20s workload may be taking its toll on him now, but he's still a good pitcher. Duensing's getting a later start, but if his career should mimic Buerhle's, the Twins (and Duensing) should be very happy with that.

Who needs Rich Harden, part II

Tragic number after Tuesday's game: 10. Tigers and Twins both won.

At the end of July there was a great deal of speculation that the Twins were about to make a waiver deal for Rich Harden. The trade did not come to fruition, and — if you care to put credence in the public statements of Jim Hendry, the Cubs general manager — never was seriously considered.

The rotation spot that would have gone to Harden is being filled now by Jeff Manship (above).

Manship has now made four starts and has lived up to the public evaluations of the Twins management — he's not ready to pitch in the majors, but he's the best available option right now. He went five innings in his first start, and hasn't gone that deep since. On Tuesday, he got all of seven outs, giving up five hits and four runs.

And yet, the Twins are 3-1 in Manship's starts.

That's a credit not to Manship, whose ERA as a starter is now 6.89, but to the lineup and the bullpen. Harden, by the way, has pitched all of 12 innings this month. At last word, he may start again in the final week, or he may not. He is not, and should not be expected to be, an innings eater. Which is relevant because the only damage Manship can be argued to have done to the Twins divisional chances is straining the bullpen.

If the Twins fail to win this divisional title — and the odds are against them — the decision not to deal for Rich Harden is not to blame.

Addendum: Manship is scheduled to start Sunday in Kansas City. His likely mound opponent: Zach Grienke, who is only the best pitcher in the league. It figures to be a tough matchup for any of the starters.

The inconsistent Nick Punto

Tragic number after Monday's play: Still 11. Twins won 7-0 in Chicago on Monday; the Tigers were off, open a series in Cleveland on Tuesday.

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Another strong game from the resurgent Nick Punto: 2-for-2 with two walks, two steals, two runs scored, and even a feet-first slide (above).

Punto's playing everyday at second base these days, and for a good reason: He's the best middle infielder the Twins have right now.

Orlando Cabrera? His batting average for the season (.271) is 39 points higher than Punto's — and his on-base percentage is 25 points lower.

Alexi Casilla? Weak as Punto's batting average is this season, it's just 15 points lower than Casilla's slugging percentage.

Punto this month has raised his batting average 19 points, his on-base percentage 22 points, his slugging percentage 33 points.

One of my co-workers a few weeks ago said the Twins should just put Casilla in the lineup and see what he's got, because "you know what you're going to get from Punto."

The fact is, you DON'T know what you'll get from Punto. This is his fifth straight season of 300-plus at-bats with the Twins. His batting averages have been .239, .290., .210, .284, and now .232 (so far). He's had OBPs around .350 and OBPs under .300.

If the Twins knew what to expect from Punto, they'd have a better idea of what they need to do this offseason.

This I know: If they keep Punto on the roster, eventually he's going to find a spot in the lineup.

Showdown, Game 3: No sweep

Tragic number: 11

Who could have figured this? On paper, Sunday's game was the one pitching matchup of the weekend series that favored the Twins.

And that's the one game the Tigers won. Scott Baker — clearly the ace of Minnesota's staff — continued to struggle against Detroit, while Nate Robertson and the beleaguered Tiger bullpen held the Twins to two runs. It's tough to win with just two runs — ask Justin Verlander — and Baker wasn't sharp enough to get it done.

And so both teams leave the series have accomplished the minimum they needed. The Twins had to win the series — a sweep would have been better, but two-of-three keeps them alive. The Tigers had to win at least one game — seeing their lead dwindle to one game would have been discouraging.

Thirteen games to go for each. The Tigers go on to Cleveland, the Twins to Chicago. And another showdown awaits next week.

Showdown, Game 2: The Dome strikes again

The tragic number: Still stuck on 13.

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Don Kelly is a 29-year-old with all of 50 major league games on his resume.

For a player like him, every day in the majors is wonderful. But Saturday had to feel like something less than that. For Kelly was the defensive sub in left field in the eighth inning who lost Orlando Cabrrera's fly ball in the dome roof.

"If he can see it, he'll catch it," said Dick Bremer on the Fox telecast. But he didn't see it, and he didn't catch it, and when the inning was over, the Twins had scored five runs and turned a 2-1 Tigers lead into a 6-2 Twins lead. And win.

We'll never know what would have happened had Kelly caught that ball. We know what did happen — a "double" for Cabrera, putting him and Denard Span in scoring position; an intentional walk for Joe Mauer; a bloop single from Jason Kubel on the 128th, and final, pitch from Justin Verlander; and then the three-run bomb from Michael Cuddyer (above).

And, for that matter, we'll never know what would have happened had the game been played without a roof.

After all, even major league players have been known to lose a fly ball in the sun.

Showdown, Game 1: Duensing delivers

Tragic number remains stuck on 13. Should the Twins catch the Tigers, I'll switch from the tragic number to the magic number. But we're still some ways away from that. It's a lot better to be in the Tigers' position — three game up with 15 to play — than the Twins' position.

A few comments and observations on Friday's 3-0 Twins victory:

* Brian Duensing continues to impress: 6 1/3 innings, four hits — more on that later — one walk, no runs.

Jim Leyland's explanation: "He kept us off balance, move the ball around, went in and out. Was he overpowering? No. Did he show great stuff? No. But he showed good stuff, and he showed tremendous pitchability."

Pitchability is a wonderful word. It means the ability to get hitters out. Juan Morillo, who was briefly with the Twins this season, has a 98-mph fastball, and no pitchability.

What I wonder: Did Duensing learn something about pitchability in the majors that he didn't know in the minors? Because he sure didn't do anything like his current run in Triple A.

* Ron Gardenhire's new-look lineup includes two September call-ups (Jose Morales and Matt Tolbert), his two worst defensive outfielders (Jason Kubel and Delmon Young) and an out-of-position first baseman (Michael Cuddyer). Plus two rookies (Duensing and Jeff Manship) in the rotation.

Very little of this could have been expected. Gardy appeared slow to recognize that Morales is a superior player to Mike Redmond. There has long been concern about Kubel's knees and if they can stand up to regular outfield play. It just seems odd to go with defense at third and the weakest available outfield gloves.

Some of this may have been born out of desperation. But it's working.

* Early on, Bert Blyleven was touting the Twins defense on the basis that they have the fewest errors in the league. But we saw later a reason why: The official scorers at the Dome have been trained not to charge errors.

A prime example came in the seventh inning. when Tolbert fielded a grounder by Marcus Thames and threw high to first base. It was ruled a hit. Not in my book. The pickup of the grounder was not necessarily an easy play, but once Tolbert had it in his glove, it was a routine throw, and he botched it. That was one of the "four" hits Duensing was charged with.

A similar ruling in the second inning — Young hit a grounder in the first base hole, and Miguel Cabrera made a very nice play on it — then threw the ball over the pitcher's head. Young got credit for a single, but that ruling makes no sense to me.

Grienke, Lombo and Delmon Young

Tragic number update: Stuck on 13, with the Twins and Tigers set to begin today a three-game series in the Metrodome.

Detroit lost Thursday 9-2 to Kansas City. There's no shame in getting shut down by Zack Greinke (left) — he's only the best pitcher in the league this year — but the Tigers got shelled twice in this series by a pathetically weak lineup.

A colleague pointed out to me today that Grienke has yet to face the Twins. Of course, the Twins have two series left against Kansas City. Meanwhile, Detroit's faced him five times (and the White Sox and Indians also five times each).

Hardly seems fair, does it?

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The latest issue of Baseball America reports that second baseman Steve Lombardozzi had a big year for the Hagerstown Suns, the Low A affiliate of the Washington Nationals.

No, not the Steve Lombardozzi who played second base for the 1987 Twins. Not the Steve Lombardozzi who hit ,344 in the postseason that year, including .412 in the World Series. Not the Steve Lombardozzi who lost his starting job the next year and complained so much about it that Dan Gladden punched him out.

It's his son, known to Baseball Reference.com as Stephen.

It is to be hoped the younger Lombo (above) proves a better hitter than his dad. The elder Lombadozzi's stats make Nick Punto look good.

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You may know that the Twins have two player who were the first overall pick in baseball's amateur draft — Joe Mauer (2001) and Delmon Young (2003).

Baseball America annually picks a minor league player of the year — as described by executive editor Jim Callis, it's "essentially the elite prospect who had the best season." This year's winner is Jason Hayward of the Braves organization.

The Twins have three of them on their roster: Mauer (2003), Young (2005) and Jon Rauch, the recently-added middle reliever, who won the award in 2000 when he was seen as a rising ace in the White Sox system. It obviously didn't happen for the big guy.

For that matter, it hasn't happened for Young either. That Young won that award two years before the Twins traded for him underlines the high regard the scouting world had for his talent at the time.

My last (?) Dome game

Tragic number: 13. Can't count on the Royals beating Detroit every game.

My wife and I went Wednesday to what we expect will be our final game at the Metrodome (photo, right, by Linda Vanderwerf). While the journey itself will, for reasons irrelevant to the blog, likely be more memorable than the game itself, a few observations:

* More examples of how difficult it is to capture defense in the stats. Cleveland's Aaron Laffey — a pitcher I really like — was victimized repeatedly by the apparent decision by his teammates that cutoff plays are overrated. A Twin heads to third, the throw has no chances of getting him, the throw goes through, and the batter takes second base. Some variation on this play happened three times Wednesday, and it would have been four if Jason Kubel could run — and the Twins turned those extra bases into three runs.

Then there's Jose Morales's second double of the game — or, as I would have scored it, single and error on Shin-Soo Choo. Next guy (Matt Tolbert) hits an grounder to first, Morales goes to third, later scores. If Morales is held to a single, maybe the Indians can keep him out of scoring position.

These things matter to Laffey. Well, they matter to all pitchers, but they particularly matter to a Tommy-John-in-training. He's going to give up hits. He needs his defense to keep the double play in order, and they didn't do that Wednesday. So he gets saddled with six earned runs — but if the defense had been sharper, it's three or so.

Not to oversell Laffey's performance. He did give up 12 hits and three walks, and he didn't strike out anybody. He's been better.

* It sure seems as if they've had more problems with the Dome's dirt since the football season started and the Dome has to do double duty. At least twice now the grounds crew has had to come out for mid-game mound reconstruction, and on Wednesday Michael Cuddyer twice spent pitching changes over at the mound cleaning mud out of his spikes.

Mud. In the Dome. Strange.

* Jose Morales can hit. (Two doubles and a sac fly, a run and an RBI in four plate appearances.)

* Carlos Gomez can run. (Scored from first on a double by Cuddyer — who took third on the throw home. See above.)

* The bullpen made me nervous. Jose Mijares, Jesse Crain, Matt Guerrier and Joe Nathan combined to throw 67 pitches to get eight outs. Only 36 of those pitches were strikes.

Quotes, notes and comments

The tragic number remains frozen at 14 after Tuesday's games. It's been a while since it stayed steady.

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"What have I seen from (Alex) Rios? A lot of outs. The only batting ninth guy making $5 million was me. This (blank-blank) is making $10, $12, $14 million, he ain't going to be batting ninth (in 2010). I'm going to make sure he earns his money. But right now I have to put him there because he's struggling. Next year, if we have Rios batting ninth we're in deep (bleep) once again.''

—Ozzie Guillen on outfielder Alex Rios, due some $60 million from the White Sox over the next five years.

Since the Blue Jays surprised the White Sox by handing over Rios and his lousy contract for the waiver price, Rios has hit .140 with a .153 on-base percentage and .215 slugging percentage. My previous entry pointed out how badly the Twins middle infielders have hit this year; Rios, as a White Sox, is making them look good.

Another take on Rios, this one from an unidentified scout for a National League team via the Chicago Tribune: "He's a teaser. He can get you fired."

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Joe Mauer went 2-for-3 Tuesday, so over his last three games he's a mere 8-for-10. At this writing he leads the AL in batting average by 21 points over Ichiro Suzuki, in on-base percentage by 17 points over Kevin Youkilis, in slugging percentage by 40 points over Kendry Morales and in OPS by 61 points over Youkilis.

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Following up on this afternoon's post about the Twins middle infield hitting: Nick Punto's 3-for-4 raised his batting average for the season over .230 for the first time since May 2.

And Orlando Cabrera had two hits, one a homer. On this day, the middle infield wasn't a drag.

Incidentally, when I wrote this afternoon's post, Punto had zero votes in my poll about which of the incumbents should be in the 2010 middle infield. Since then, there have been two added votes, both for Punto.

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Cabrera, in Cleveland's big fourth inning — when the Tribe scored three runs — provided a good example of the difficulty of telling what's pitching and what's defense. With one out and a man on second, Jhonny Peralta hit a ground ball to the left on second base. Watching on TV, I thought: A perfect DP grounder. And then the ball rolled on into center field, Cabrera being nowhere near making a play on it.

I don't know what the deal was. Maybe Cabrera was playing Peralta to pull the ball. Maybe Cabrera, at age 34, doesn't have the range he once did. What I do know is that I've watched several hundred games, on the tube or in person, and I expected a ground ball hit in that location at that velocity to be fielded by a major league shortstop.

Bert Blyleven blamed Scott Baker for making a bad pitch; I blamed Cabrera for not making the play. I don't know that either of us can convince the other.

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Rany Jazayerli's blog on the Kansas City Royals has a place on my blogroll, but he's shutting it down out of disgust with the K.C. organization. I'll leave it on the roll for now in case the winter eases Dr. Jazayerli's pain, but I suspect that eventually it will have to come down.