Denard Span played all nine innings tonight for Class AAA Rochester in a 7-3 win over the Louisville Bats. Span played into the tenth inning yesterday before being replaced by a pinch runner. So he looks like he's on his way to returning to the Twins by the end of the weekend.

If he's still a Twin.

Actually, there not much news on the Span-to-Washington front, except that there were reports during the day that the Nationals are not willing to put Drew Storen in the deal. If that is true, then I can't see how they can put together a deal for Span. Storen solves the Twins' closer problem for several years. The Twins have indicated that they are not shopping Span and would have to be very impressed by an offer to consider dealing him.

With a need at closer for 2012 - who knows what will happen with Matt Capps and Joe Nathan - I'm not sure the Twins would do a deal without Storen. I'm not saying it's impossible, just hard to believe.

Danny Valencia was 0-for-4 on Thursday with a big error in the eighth inning. Valencia was batting .309 this month with four homers before tonight's game,so he's been working on that batting average. But his error helped Texas score two insurance runs.

Valencia might get a day off during the upcoming three-game series against Oakland. The one thing that might get him into the lineup on Friday is that lefthander Gio Gonzalez is on the mound.

Michael Cuddyer was having a pretty good at-bat in the eighth inning against reliever Yoshinori Tateyama - until the righthander threw a 71-mile an hour something at him. Cuddyer committed early and had no chance,striking out.

``I don't know what it is," he said. ``an off-speed pitch is what I'm going to call it. He started it in on me, which got me to open up."