The Twins have ridded themselves of one problem in Sidney Ponson, but there are still many more. Joe Mauer is still out for at least another week and despite Sunday's breakout performance, the offense has struggled to produce runs as the Twins have lost 4 straight series. To make matters worse they'll take on the 21-14 Indians who are 11-3 at their combined homes (They played a series in Milwaukee).

The Indians have struggled lately too though, losing 4 of their last 5 games. They have a suspect bullpen with Joe Borowski in the closer role. Borowski has 2 blown saves on the year with his most recent coming on Sunday when he allowed 4 runs to Oakland in a 9th inning of a 10-7 loss.

The pitching match ups for the series:

• Tuesday: Paul Byrd (2-1, 2.84) vs. Ramon Ortiz (3-3, 3.80). Ramon Ortiz has run into some trouble in his last two starts with a combined 9 runs allowed in 10 innings. Getting on track against the high-powered Cleveland offense won't be easy. Byrd was 2-1 with a 3.76 ERA against the Twins in 2006.
• Wednesday: C.C. Sabathia (5-1, 4.02) vs. Carlos Silva (2-3, 3.00). Sabathia got a little roughed up his last time out in Oakland, but he's typically a strikeout machine. The Twins have obviously struggled against lefties this year which doesn't make Sabathia a good matchup for the Twins lineup. Silva has continued to amaze this season, and we'll have to hope for more on Wednesday night.
• Thursday: Fausto Carmona (4-1, 3.12) vs. Johan Santana (4-3, 3.35). Carmona emerged last year primarily as a relief pitcher for the Indians, but he's been successful so far as a starter this year. With a 16 to 12 K-BB ratio and nearly a hit allowed per inning, his 3.12 ERA is slightly better than it should be. As for Johan, he got out of the gate early in his last start, but settled in for a nice final 4 innings in the loss to Detroit.

Some of Cleveland's big hitters haven't really gotten it going yet, but they've still managed to score 185 runs on the season. Grady Sizemore is batting just .239, but walking plenty. Travis Hafner has just 7 homers and Josh Barfield is falling far short of the expectations he set last year with just a .212 batting average.

The Twins will have Garret Jones with the team for the series with no official word on how long he'll be around and who will ultimately replace Ponson in the rotation. Jones is expected to primarily DH and possibly play some outfield. I'd expect Jason Kubel to start in LF with Jones DHing. I liked what Gardy did with the lineup on Sunday and hopefully he'll keep that up with:

1. Luis Castillo
2. Jason Bartlett
3. Michael Cuddyer
4. Justin Morneau
5. Torii Hunter
6. Jason Kubel
7. Garret Jones/Mike Redmond
8. Mike Redmond/Garret Jones
9. Nick Punto

The Twins were swept by Cleveland in a short 2 game series at the Dom in late April and it was soon after that the season began to fall of the tracks. The Twins need to take advantage of the opportunity to get things back on track in this series. The Twins sit 5 games behind Detroit and 4 behind Cleveland and they can't afford to let the deficit grow much larger than that.

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