Twins interim General Manager Rob Antony agreed to do a Q&A with us that ran in Wednesday's editions. Well, not all of it. Because of space constraints we had to leave a few questions on the cutting room floor.

But this is where the interwebs (some famous guy invented the term) come in.

I went back through my notes and found three additional topics he addressed during the interview. So we're going to post them here and allow you to digest them. Antony may or may not be a strong candidate to be the long-term answer for the position, but I got the sense that he's not as much of a Ryan clone as some assume he his. And he has the rest of the season to show what he's capable of.

Now, I fully expect the Twins to conduct an exhaustive search for a new GM, and it very could be a pair of fresh eyes and fresh thoughts. But this is fascinating period in Twins history because they haven't brought in an outsider since Andy MacPhail in 1986. But there are a few tentacles to this process, so let's consider this one for a moment.

Here's the rest of the Q and A:

What would make this a successful second half?

``I would like to acquire some players at the trade deadline that could help this organization, whether it is next year or beyond. I'm hoping - and some of these things I can't control - I would consider it a successful second half if Byron Buxton gets rolling, gets some confidence. It's going to be used as a period to evaluate players and try to figure out who we can count on for next year. I don't know if that answers the question of what is successful. It's hard to do when you are looking at maybe rebuilding a little bit and understanding where we are at. Because we might trade some players who would help us win more games the rest of the season. In the end, we're not going to make the playoffs. When that doesn't happen, you want to put yourself in as good a position to be competitive next year. I think Paul understands that. He's on board."

In what ways do you feel ready for this job?

``Over the course of the last 20-something years, I'm not big on blowing my horn, but I can say that the facts of being in the minors, working through the minor league system. I've been in scouting. I've scouted. I've been doing contracts for 12 years. I've been in on all the trade deadline stuff for years and years. I think I have the experience in all the different areas. I'm aggressive. I think I'm not afraid to make mistakes because sometimes I think you have to take some risks. Therefore I'm not intimated by the job. Working under Terry and working with a lot of other people I've learned a lot of things."

You mentioned Monday that there is a nucleus here. So how much needs to be fixed here?

``Some of it is difficult because there are some players and people here, and I don't want to point fingers, but there are people who have underperformed, And if they had performed up to their abilities I think would be different this year. Some things went wrong from a the very beginning. We couldn't do anything right to start the season. When we had opportunities to win games but we didn't win them. We couldn't finish them off. Starting pitching has been an issue for us. When your starters aren't giving you at least six inning a start you are going to tax your bullpen, that's going to lead to injuries and overuse and ineffectiveness. Everyone has to pull their way and there are some people we need figure if they can pull their own weight. And if not, we need to make some changes. And the players need to understand this, I said this to Paul. We have 70 games left. I hope the players in that clubhouse know - and if they don't, they will - that some of them are playing for jobs. Some of them are playing so we know can count on them. They dictate what we need to do and I think a learning lesson for us in the front office is maybe we can put too much confidence in some of the young players that they were just going to take that next step."