Those kids can play a little bit, no?

For the record:

Joe Mauer - 23 years old
Francisco Liriano - 22 years old

As Timbuk 3 would say, the future's so bright I gotta wear shades.

Liriano, again, was brilliant. He only threw 86 pitches (and much props to Gardy for not putting him in for another inning in a 7-run game - save all the innings you can), but he went 7 innings, striking out, and giving up only 2 solo HR (5 hits total). As with his last start, an outing like this actually raised his ERA all the way up to 2.21. By the way, if my calculations are correct, he has a very good chance by after his next start to have enough innings to qualify for the ERA title, where he would have a huge lead as of today.

As for the Joe Mauer, who's becoming kind of a big deal, was 5/5 on the day, or 9/10 the last 2 games in case you haven't been paying attention. His batting average is all the way up to .389, leading at least one guy to start to ask, 'What if?' Meanwhile, he's moved up to 3rd place on the AL All-Star voting for Catchers, behind only Jason Varitek and Ivan Rodriguez. It's worth mentioning that Joe has been better in every facet of the game than these two players. In other words, VOTE FOR JOE MAUER.

By the way, very nice article on Yahoo! about Joe Mauer, which you should read if you have a chance.

The Twins go for another sweep on Wednesday as they send Johan Cytana to the mound to take on Odalis Perez in the battle of the lefties. Johan currently sits at 8-4 with a 2.75 ERA, while Odalis is 4-2 with a 6.33 ERA. Twins would seem to have the advantage on paper, but we all know these games aren't played on paper but by the little men in our TV sets. Hopefully they little men in Twins uniforms continue their torrid pace!