AUGUST 13, 2009 -- KANSAS CITY 5, MINNESOTA 4

Another humbling loss to the hands of one of the worst teams in the American League, the Kansas City Royals. Carl Pavano lets the bottom of the order beat him in the first four innings, and the Joe Mauer machine couldn't power the Twins to a victory. Mauer drove home all four runs for the Twins off Royals starter Gil Meche, including a three-run home run in the fifth inning that brought the Twins back in the game at 5-4. But the Twins had chances galore, and yet again couldn't get a two-out hit to save their lives. Mauer's home run was the lone hit the Twins had with runners in scoring position, and five innings ended with a runner in scoring position being stranded there. Michael Cuddyer did that twice, again securing his status as a guy who only produces in low-pressure situations, and new acquisition Orlando Cabrera failed big time in the sixth inning when he grounded into an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded. The real goat of that inning was likely Nick Punto, who couldn't even do the easiest thing to do in all of sports -- get a freaking bunt down, and three times he bunted it foul. I'd love to say "see, Gardenhire -- why are you playing this worthless excuse of a ballplayer?" but I feel I've said it before until I was blue in the face. We just have to accept the fact that Ron Gardenhire wants horrible, terrible, pathetic players in the lineup every single game. If he could, he'd pencil himself into the lineup, because I don't know how Gardenhire could do worse than his career .232 batting average. Well, what am I talking about -- of course he could do worse, as evidenced by Nick Punto's embarrassing batting average, which is sitting pretty at a cozy .204.

Not much to add about such a pathetic series as this one, but I do have to give props to Royals manager Trey Hillman for doing something that's so logical and strategic that Ron Gardenhire would never think of doing. Hillman, whose starter Meche had struggled through five innings, was finding that his patchwork bullpen was shaky at best, so he decided to bring in his closer Joakim Soria to start the eighth inning and have a chance for a two-inning save. And guess what happened? The Royals won the game. Soria hadn't pitched at all in the other two games in the series, and so he was fresh enough to go a little bit more than is normally expected of a modern-day closer. Sure, Soria ended up throwing 35 pitches, which may be out of his comfort zone, but more importantly, the Royals won. Trey Hillman -- there's another man in baseball who would do a better job managing the Twins than the sad-sack Ron Gardenhire. I was explaining to a family member who isn't much of a Twins fan why it was a terrible idea to bring in Jesse Crain in the ninth to "hold" a one-run deficit, and they asked (quite logically) "Why not bring in Nathan?" All I could respond with was, "you can't. They have to be in the lead for Nathan to come in the game." This person looked confused and said, "you can't put him in if you're behind?" "Yeah, I know it doesn't make much sense, but them's the breaks when you've got Ron Gardenhire for a manager."

The Twins will now face the fourth-place Cleveland Indians at the dome, and nothing is taken for granted anymore with this ballclub. They haven't won a series in seemingly forever (only two weeks, surprisingly) and the Twins are roughly about the same amount of games ahead of Cleveland (6) than they are behind Detroit (5). And they have to face Aaron Laffey in this series, who the Twins have selected as their arch nemesis for the month. We'll see if the Twins can win one of three here in this upcoming series.