The end of the 12-game homestand feels half-empty, with a leak in the glass.

Instead of making strides toward the top of the AL Central, the Twins are seven games back -- a half-game further back than at the beginning of those dozen games. Worse, there are signs of fraying right now. The starting pitching didn't come through against the Tigers, with the exception of Scott Baker's five innings on Saturday, and the offense chugged along in a low gear, when it chugged at all.

And Sunday featured another overamped and unsatisfactory performance by Francisco Liriano. Four walks, two wild pitches and six hits -- including four straight before he was yanked from the game in the third inning -- created a 4-0 hole that the Twins' offense was incapable of closing. It was another of his mechanics-poor outings and Liriano punctuated it with a throwing-and-kicking tantrum when he reached the dugout. Even that was a pale imitation of the Chris Perez display last Tuesday after the Cleveland reliever gave up the game-losing hit in the ninth inning. That spoke to maturity, and not in the way you'd want.

Whatever the reason, it was another indication that the Twins were sadly wise in not offering more than a one-year contract to Liriano at the start of the season. Right now -- and this could be the half-emptiness writing -- I'd like to see him finish strong so Liriano has some trade value come winter. Let his inconsistency, whatever the reason, be some other team's problem.

There were other distressing shortcomings against Detroit. The offense failed repeatedly when big hits were needed and Sunday's defense was especially shabby. Liriano wasn't much good Sunday, but his knockout came during an inning when the Twins pretty much gave Detroit five outs. There was Magglio Ordonez stealing his 11th base in the last eight seasons when Joe Mauer double-clutched and then threw high to second base and Alexi Casilla's boot of a double-play grounder that allowed the inning's final run to score. Detroit scored its final run in the sixth on an Anthony Swarzak wild pitch that Mauer should have been able to smother.

Sunday's game degenerated to the point of endless TV announcer conversation about the troubles caused by the shadows coming across the field on a sunny day with a late-afternoon start. Just when you thought everything had been said about the subject, they found another ... (Cutting if off here, lest I go on and on and on, too.)

Being seven games out with 61 games to play is not an insurmountable gap.

But...

The Twins start a four-game series tonight against Texas, which had a 12-game winning streak earlier this month before losing three of its last five.

Carrying 13 pitchers leaves a skinny bench that will force Gardy to think twice about hitting for the slumping Ben Revere and Tsuyoshi Nishioka, and perhaps force him to pretend that Jason Kubel is just fine against left-handed pitching, which the Twins should see a lot against the Rangers and in Oakland. (The options are Butera catching/Mauer at first/Cuddyer in right or Mauer catching/Cuddyer at first/Plouffe in right.)

I assume the questions about how aggressively to "buy" talent will be revisited by management. A bad series against Texas and -- depending on how Detroit and Cleveland do at the same time -- the Twins could well run up the sellers' flag for Sunday's trade deadline.

Casilla still has two more home runs that Mauer, who teased us with a sweet hitting run before going 3-for-15 (all singles) in the Detroit series.

The only spirit-propping thing right now is thinking back to 2009, and the number of times I wrote off the Twins chances before their end-of-season title push.

I'd really like to have more to lean on right now than what happened two years ago.