Nothing hurt

A loss is never good, but with Chicago and Boston also losing, the Twins remain just a half game behind the White Sox for the Wildcard lead.

But that doesn't mean this isn't disappointing. 3 HR for Nick Markakis? Really? That's basically the story of the game, because when the SP gives up 5 HR, things aren't going well.

The poor performance from Silva brought up an interesting comment from diehard ct twins fan in the comments section:

Looks like the Twins should have put Lohse back in the rotation instead of Silva before. I know Lohse what somewhat of a head case but you can't argue with what he's doing with the Reds. Then again, it is the NL.

When Lohse started this year, he was just ridiculously bad. He was walking a lot of guys, he didn't strike out too many, and had given up a fairly high amount of HR. He was demoted, brought back and put in the pen, did decently well, and then was traded, much to my delight.

In Cincy, all he's done in 5 games (4 starts) is throw 27.1 IP, give up just 5 ER while striking out 26. Is it all because of the NL? Would he have been able to do this for the Twins? Who knows. Baseball is a funny game.

All I know is that at the time Lohse was traded, Liriano was the best pitcher in the game, Johan was Johan, and Radke was solid. Now, we can't get consistent starts from any of the back 3 in the rotation. Hindsight in 20/20, and it might be nice to have Lohse now seeing what's happened, but it was hard to see this coming.

Anyway, time to move on, especially with Matt Garza on the hill tonight against Rodrigo Lopez and the Os. If the Twins are going to make a run, Garza needs to step up and pitch at least somewhat to his potential. He's got great stuff, and in time he'll make a great pitcher, I just hope it's sooner rather than later. But it's hard to talk negative about him, seeing as he's only made 2 Major League starts. Let's hope he gets turned around, and who knows, maybe the Twins can take the Wildcard lead!