Twins won tonight, 6-4, to move back to nine games out of first place.
The highlights:
-Joe Nathan looked filthy, retiring all three batters he faced. His fastball topped out at 93 or 94, but he had much better movement tonight than in his last outing. After getting the third out on a slider in the dirt, he pumped his fist as he left the mound.
-Matt Capps, too, is throwing with greater movement now than a few weeks ago. The Twins said he was pitching through forearm pain, and that notion has greater credibility when you see Capps throwing with more life, as he did on Tuesday.
-These would be good developments, because internally the Twins are more worried about their bullpen than any of their other failings.
They know Joe Mauer will eventually hit. They expect to eventually get their best position players back on the field. They don't know how or if they're going to fix the bullpen.
The best scenario for this team would be to move close enough to the division leaders that the front office feels compelled to trade for another power reliever. Add one more live arm to this mix, and Capps, Nathan, Glen Perkins and Reliever X could be enough, given the strong showing by the rotation this month, to allow this team to make a move.
-Gotta share this: I was on Sirius Radio this morning with disgraced former Mets executive and disgraced former ESPN fraud Steve Phillips this morning.