On Friday night Francisco Liriano bounced back with a pretty good start against Seattle. He held them to 1 run through 6 innings. He still threw a lot of pitches and walked 4 batters, but he managed to avoid the disastrous innings that had plagued him recently.

The game headed into extra innings and after the Mariners accurately predicted Ron Gardenhire's squeeze attempt and pitched out trapping Joe Mauer between 3rd and home, Matt Tolbert managed to hit a fly ball to deep left field. The ball was misplayed by Wladimir Balentien for an error and it allowed the Twins to win 2-1.

The next two games of the series were close, but didn't go the Twins' way.

Nick Blackburn turned in another solid start on Saturday, allowing 1 run through 7 innings, but the offense just wasn't there for him. The top of the lineup (Denard Span, Mauer and Justin Morneau) went a combined 0-12 against lefty Jarrod Washburn.

The decision to use Sean Henn in the 8th inning with a 1-1 tie seemed questionable to me, but in the end the offense needs to score more than 1 run to win games.

On Sunday Kevin Slowey struggled all day long and wasn't able to make it out of the fifth inning after surrending 4 runs on 10 hits and 2 walks. He allowed 3 home runs to Seattle.

The Twins drew 6 walks from Seattle pitching on Sunday, but were never able to capitalize with runners in scoring position. In total, the Twins were 0-8 with RISP. Seattle actually left more runners on base, so the score could've been a lot worse.

R.A. Dickey pitched another 2 1/3 innings of scoreless long relief. He has been nothing short of brilliant over the past month. He posted a 1.86 ERA in 19 1/3 innings in May and has yet to allow a run in 2 appearanced (4 1/3 inning) in June.

Visiting Oakland

West coast swings have been rough on the Twins in recent years, and this one is off to the same kind of start. The Twins had a golden opportunity to take over first place in the AL Central on this trip, but the 2 losses now place them 3.5 games behind division leading Detroit.

The Twins will need to right the ship against Oakland, a team that finds itself in last place in the AL West with a 25-30 record, but has won 6 straight.

The Twins will face lefty starters in the first 3 games--Josh Outman (3-0, 3.02 ERA) on Monday, Brett Anderson (3-5, 4.97 ERA) on Tuesday and Dallas Braden (5-5, 3.41 ERA) on Wednesday. They'll finish with righty Trevor Cahill (3-5, 4.21 ERA) on Thursday.

The Twins will send out Anthony Swarzak, Scott Baker, Francisco Liriano and Nick Blackburn to face them. Swarzak might be seeing his last start with Glen Perkins due to make his 2nd rehab start early this week.