Johan Santana had his best start of the season with 2 back-to-back homers in the seventh inning by Victor Martinez and Ryan Garko being his only flaw. Besides the homeruns, Santana allowed just 3 baserunners and struck out a season-high 11 batters through 7 innings. It also marked his 100th straight start that he went at least five innings which is a truly amazing feat. In the past 50 years only 3 other pitchers have had longer streaks:

• Curt Schilling (147)
• David Cone (145)
• Bob Gibson (112)

That’s pretty good company.

The unfortunate part was that the excellent outing by Santana resulted in a 2-0 loss by the Twins as Cleveland completed the 3-game sweep and improved their lead over the Twins to 7 games. With Detroit losing, Cleveland moved into first place in the AL Central.

The Twins bats are to blame for this loss. Fausto Carmona had the start of his career on Thursday. He allowed just 4 hits and two walks while pitching his first complete game (and shutout) of his career. The Twins had a couple chances to get something going, but failed both times. Justin Morneau led off the second inning with a double, but was left stranded at third. In the third with Luis Castillo at first Jason Bartlett bunted a pop-up to the pitcher which resulted in a double play.

With 40 games complete the Twins are now roughly 1/4 of the way through the season and sit with a record of 18 wins and 22 losses. That’s nearly as bad as the Twins 17-23 mark through 40 games last season. Having optimism based on last season’s turnaround may not be realistic this year. Francisco Liriano will be rehabbing in Florida at a time when last year he was just joining the Twins rotation.

It’s too soon to count the Twins out just yet, but it’s certainly not looking good. For a little optimism, the Twins are 7 games out of first right now, but were 12 games back in mid July last year.

Crain likely finished for year

Jesse Crain’s MRI results came back and the worst-case scenario appears to have come true. He has a torn rotator cuff and a torn labrum. The injuries would almost definitely require season-ending surgery. Crain has been ineffective in the bullpen this year, which can probably be blamed on the injury. Fortunately the Twins have a pretty deep bullpen and should be able to pull throw it.