Here are three thoughts from LEN3


WAS DOZIER SAFE?: Brian Dozier crushed a ball to center field in the fifth and tried to turn it into a triple. The throw came into third baseman Matt Davidson, who applied the tag to a sliding Dozier. Third base umpire Todd Tichenor called Dozier out, and Dozier immediately motioned for the Twins to challenge the call. The one thing that piqued manager Paul Molitor's interest was that Davidson appeared to keep looking for a place to tag Dozier. So the Twins challenged the call - and lost. "It looked to me like the replay was inconclusive," Molitor said. "The glove got hidden there on most of the angles as far as when contact was made. It was worth a challenge, I thought. It would have been a big overturn if we could have gotten it. We just didn't have enough of an angle to see if the glove glanced Dozier before his hand got on the base."

MAUER: Just reading that name stirs up a lot in you these days. Mauer is batting .188 and seems incapable of adjusting to shifts. Molitor pretty such said so, but in a nice way, after the game: "He's centered up a fair amount of balls that haven't resulted in hits. We all know he hits into the defense a lot. That's one of the problems with good at bats that don't get hits. He's a guy who has pretty strong tendencies." That's true more now than ever. Mauer's line drive percentage entering Friday was 28.0, which would be a career high. That suggests his hits are going to come because he's going to smoke a few over and through the shifts. He's hitting 44 percent of balls to center, which is where teams are bunching him right now. His fly ball percentage is a whopping 44 percent. In 2009, the year he hit 28 home runs, it was 29.5 - the second highest of his career only to his rookie year that ended early because of knee surgery. These numbers suggest that he's going to get his hits, regardless of where the defense is playing him.

BUXTON: Another name that is popular right now. Buxton struck out just once today. His hardest hit ball smoked Tichenor in the back in the second inning. And he just missed a pitch in the eighth, flying out to medium deep left-center. Baby steps, I guess. But Buxton has to learn how to hit up here. Unless he shows signs that he needs a therapist, I would keep him up here and let him work it out.