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.

Reshaping the pitching staff

It's a rather un-Twinslike flurry of activity.

First it was Jon Rauch, acquired from Arizona Friday.

Then it was Ron Mahay, whose signing is to be announced today. Armando Gabino has already been returned to Triple A Rochester to make room for the veteran lefty reliever.

And in the next day or so, the Twins will find out if they landed Brad Penny or Rich Harden.

Harden (above) is the biggest name and the biggest risk. I'm surprised he cleared waivers in the National League, but the most recent informed speculation has the Twins winning the claim on him.

If so — waiver claims are supposed to be confidential, and there's generally a lot more smoke than visible flame — now comes a day or two of high-stakes poker. Harden figures to be a Type-A free agent, meaning that the Cubs would argue that they can hang on to him and get two high draft picks should he sign elsewhere this winter.

But that assumes that (a) they're willing to offer arbitration to the brittle but talented right-handed starter and (b) that Cubs don't suffer the same fate that befell the Toronto Blue Jays last winter. They lost Type-A free agent A.J. Burnett to the Yankees and only got a third-round pick in compensation, because the Yankees' first-rounder went to Anaheim for Mark Teixiera and their second-rounder to Milwaukee for CC Sabathia.

So there are risks involved for the Cubs in holding on to Harden, although in his case arbitration is probably less risky than a multi-year deal, and the odds of such a triple-strike signing of Type A's recurring are rather slim.

For their part, the Twins are unlikely to be willing to surrender somebody like Ben Revere for a five-week rental, and his lengthy injury history argues against a multi-year deal.

My guess is that nothing will happen on this front. One Internet piece of speculation says the Twins have already dropped their interest in Harden because Friday's Scott Kazmir deal set the prospect price too high. Which may be true, or may be imaginary. It may be imaginary now and be true by the time Monday's deadline arrives.

Meanwhile, Brian Duensing is making the need for another starter a bit less acute. That's three starts, totalling 17 innings, with a 2.65 ERA. Of course, there's really no reason to believe he's actually that good.

What a relief(?)

Saturday's game was essentially a bullpen game for the Twins. Brian Duensing wasn't quite as good as his line score suggests — those two HBPs added to the stress — but five innings of two-run ball is good enough for a spot start. (That's two decent spot starts for Duensing, albeit against light-hitting lineups; maybe it's time to put him in the rotation and see what happens.)

But then we saw Bobby Keppel and Jesse Crain, each of whom had trouble throwing strikes. Twelve strikes of 24 pitches for Keppel, eight strikes in 15 pitches for Crain. They combined to pitch one inning of four runs, granting that the runs charged to Crain scored while Jose Mijares got out of the bases-loaded mess Crain left him.

Keppel's ERA in July was 6.75. His ERA in August is also 6.75. There's a trend here. Ron Coomer kept assuring us Saturday that Keppel's two-seam fastball is a "weapon." But if he can't throw strikes with it, it's a gun pointed backwards.

And Crain ... Dick Bremer said he's pitched well since his return from rochester. Then FSN put up the numbers, which showed Crain with a 4.40 ERA since his return, and Bremer started amending his earlier statement.

Crain did enter Saturday's game with an August ERA of 3.00 (nine innings). Now it's 4.82.

Of course, if Gomez catches that popup, only one run gets charged to Crain ... but that would be more a credit to Mijares' work than Crain's.

Two basic conclusions, neither new: 1) The Twins have Matt Guerrier and Jose Mijares in front of Joe Nathan, and everybody else in the bullpen is suspect and

2) The easiest way to win a baseball game is often to let the other team lose it. Both teams tried hard to lose that one, but the Royals are "better" at that.

--

Poll results:

Twenty votes in the question of current interest in the Twins:

10 (50 percent) are interested now strictly for Mauer and Morneau; seven (35 percent) are interested in the season to the end no matter what; two (10 percent) still hold out hope for the postseason; and one (5 percent) says bring on football.

Ah, the wonders of a self-selecting audience.

New poll up.

A Buehrle imitation

When he's on — and he has been of late — Mark Buehrle of the Chicago White Sox makes pitching look easy.

Move the ball in and out, up and down. Change speeds. Work fast.

He's a pitching coach's mantra come to life.

I sat the the outfield cheap seats Wednesday night watch Brian Duensing, an emergency fill-in starter for Francisco Liriano, do a passable Buerhle imitation.

He threw just nine pitches in the first inning. Every one of them was a strike. He threw 16 pitches in the second inning; 12 strikes, four balls. Two of those balls were to Alexi Ramirez, who is well-known to have little regard for the strike zone, so I assume Duensing was trying to miss the zone with those pitches.

For the game, Duensing threw 64 pitches: 48 strikes, 16 balls, a very impressive 3-to-1 ratio. I doubt we'll ever see Liriano display that kind of control.

It wasn't a flawless performance. He did give up a couple of homers. I doubt that he convinced anybody that if one of the current starters got hurt he'd be no major downgrade.

But for one night, he got the job done.

---

Two other keys to that game were players who have had bad seasons so far.

Jesse Crain picked up the "W" with two scoreless innings. He allowed leadoff hits in both frames, then induced around-the-horn double plays from right-handed sluggers (Paul Konerko in the sixth, Carlos Quentin in the seventh).

And Alexi Casilla had a pair of RBI hits, one of them a double, and stole a base — and in the field was the pivot man on both of Crain's DPs.

We can file this game under "blind pigs find acorns," or we can hope this is a sign that what was expected from them might still be forthcoming.

Henn down, Duensing up

The Twins today swapped out lefty relievers, recalling Brian Duensing (left) from Rochester and outrighting Sean Henn. Duensing opened the season with the Twins but didn't stick very long.

Two points.

1) The decision to waive Craig Breslow back in May looks worse and worse. Breslow, since joining Oakland, has an ERA of 2.30. More impressive, he has allowed 15 baserunners in 15 2/3 innings and struck out 14. In short, he's pitched the way he did last season with the Twins.

Henn offered more of a power arm, but little real idea of how to use it. Eight walks in 11 1.3 IP ?

Now Duensing gets his second chance to be the second lefty. Or something. Which leads me to point ...

2) Breslow, fairly or not, has gotten the LOOGY label. His numbers — last season and this — suggest he is capable of more than that, but both Ron Gardenhire and his manager in Oakland, Bob Geren, have used him as a specialist. (Thirteen of Breslow's 21 appearances for the A's have been for less than three outs.)

Jose Mijares, in contrast, is earning that label. His platoon splits this season are incredible. Left-handed hitters are helpless and right-handers are Cooperstown material. Last September he was a dominant arm; this year, a specialist.

Which makes him less of an eighth-inning option. He had just two outings in June in which he got three outs. Gardenhire now uses him as a LOOGY, to piece together innings.

Which, coming into the season, was Breslow's role. Which was supposed to be inherited by Henn.

My guess is that Duensing — who has been starting in Rochester without notable success— is not ticketed for a LOOGY role. I think he'll get the long relief/mop-up job that was first R.A. Dickey's and, for the past week or so, Bob Keppel's. If Matt Guerrier and Mijares are eight inning options A and A1, Dickey and Keppel are the choices for the sixth and seventh.

This isn't ideal. But impatience with Breslow, coupled with Mijares' inability to deal with right-handers, have put the Twins in this bind.

Those things, plus their inability/unwillingness to bring in a reliable reliever from outside the organization.