Heading into Friday's series opener at the new Yankee Stadium, the Twins found themselves with a share of the AL Central Division lead as well as a record above .500 for the first time since the infant days of the season.

A few days later the Twins find themselves 3 games behind the division leading Detroit Tigers, after suffering from 3 straight walk-off losses to the Yankees, who have no won 5 straight.

On Friday night Francisco Liriano handed a 4-1 lead over the bullpen only to see Jesse Crain allow 1 run in the seventh and Joe Nathan blow the game by allowing 3 runs in the ninth. Offensively, Justin Morneau had hit 2 homeruns and Joe Mauer hit one.

On Saturday the Twins' offense got Nick Blackburn a 1-run lead after scoring two runs in the eighth. In the bottom of the inning Blackburn allowed the game to be tied. Craig Breslow then allowed a 2-run walk-off homer to Alex Rodriguez in the 11th inning. Morneau had hit his 12th homer of the season in the game, and Mauer hit his 6th.

On Sunday, Kevin Slowey took a good start into the eighth inning, and handed the bullpen a 2-2 tied game. Jose Mijares pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings and helped Slowey out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth by striking out Hideki Matsui. Jesse Crain came in for the 10th inning and allowed the walk-off home run to Johnny Damon.

Mauer made a great play in the ninth inning by tagging out Brett Gardner at the plate on what would have been the game-winning run at the time.

The Twins escape to Chicago to face the White Sox on Tuesday.

To sum up the weekend, the weak Twins' bullpen was exposed in some tight games that went late. Mauer, Morneau and Jason Kubel all had a good weekend at the plate, but didn't get a lot of production from other parts of the lineup.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), it's a 4-game series, so the Twins will have a chance to avoid the sweep tonight. Two lefties, Glen Perkins and Andy Pettite, will face off against eachother. This strikes me as the least favorable matchup of the series for the Twins, but baseball can be a strange game, and surely the Twins are due for a victory.