Sid Hartman: It's time for Twins to pillage Pirates

There is no doubt that if the Twins are to contend for the American League Central title and do anything in the postseason, then this team has to be strengthened.

This team just doesn't have the personnel to put together the kind of nine- or 10-game winning streak that other successful Twins teams of recent years have done.

It hasn't helped that their record against the AL East is 6-19. In losing 6-4 to the Yankees on Thursday, the Twins fell to 0-7 against New York this season. They are 2-4 against Boston, 1-3 against Toronto, 3-3 against Tampa Bay and 0-2 against Baltimore, with four games at Toronto and three games at home against Baltimore still to come.

There have been rumors that the Twins have been talking to Pittsburgh about a trade for former National League batting champion Freddy Sanchez, who is hitting .316; and/or relief pitchers Matt Capps (1-4 with a 4.71 ERA) or John Grabow (3-0, 3.49 ERA).

The Twins organization has traditionally refused to give up top prospects to strengthen the team, preferring to do so by calling up players from the farm system. Last year, Denard Span, Alexi Casilla and Brian Buscher came up from Class AAA Rochester to give the Twins the spark they needed. But nobody recalled this year has done much to help.

Manager Ron Gardenhire isn't going to complain publicly about his personnel, but how can he be happy with the bottom of his lineup?

If the Twins are going to make a run at the division title, they need to make some deals the way other teams have with Pittsburgh to give themselves a chance to compete.

Last month, the Pirates sent outstanding outfielder Nate McLouth to Atlanta in exchange for outfielder Gorkys Hernandez and pitchers Charlie Morton and Jeff Locke.

The Pirates played in the Metrodome from June 16 to 18; since then, they have dealt away Eric Hinske to the Yankees and Nyjer Morgan and Sean Burnett to Washington. So Pittsburgh appears to be a club in a mood to trade away some of its more established players on the major league roster.

Yankees tough Reviewing the seven-game season series against the Yankees, in which the Twins lost six games by either one or two runs, Gardenhire said: "We were short one base hit in three or four games. We didn't pitch well. What they do is make you work. They've got a lot of great hitters all the way up and down the lineup. They put the ball in play. They put a lot of pressure on you.

"They just wore us down. I think they wore our pitchers down by fouling off pitches. Every one of our pitchers had a lot of pitches in the first three innings. That's where they get you. It's a good baseball club over there and they made us work. They got it down. Mental block, I'm not buying that."

Well now the White Sox come to town, and they also are a hot club.

"He's an amazing player," Girardi said. "What he does offensively and defensively, he's a great player. He hit two homers [against the Yankees this season] ... and then he laid down a bunt [Thursday]. The other thing is, he really knows how to play the game. You watch him, he's very intelligent back there. He runs the game like it's supposed to be run."

Asked why the Yankees dominated the Twins this season -- even at the Metrodome, where the Twins at least had some success against New York in the past -- Girardi said: "[The Dome is] always a tough place to come to. Six out of the seven games were close, and probably could have gone either way. So we were fortunate."

Jottings Former Twins superstar Rod Carew has taken a new position to work for the Angels, but he also will continue to be on the payroll of the Twins; in fact, Carew was in town this week doing some promotional work for the Twins.

Derek Jeter has an all-time batting average of .322 against the Twins in his 15 seasons, while in his 16 seasons, Alex Rodriguez is hitting .330 with 44 home runs against the Twins.

No wonder the Twins are 0-7 against the Yankees: The Twins hit .232 in the seven games, including .192 (19-for-99) in this series. They never seemed to be able to come up with the big run-scoring hit in New York or here, as the Yankees pitching staff really shut them down.

Francisco Liriano, who now has a 4-9 record this season after giving up six runs (three earned) and seven hits in 5 1/3 innings Thursday, said: "I've got to get my pitches better, locate my fastball better." Liriano obviously isn't the same pitcher he was in 2006, before he had elbow ligament replacement surgery. "It's way different now," he said. "Before I threw harder, now I'm not at the same speed. Now I have to learn how to pitch, throwing 92, 93 [miles per hour]. ... My arm doesn't bother me at all."

This fall, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission will issue a report on how much it would cost to turn the Metrodome into a first-class facility for the Vikings. The word is that the report will say it would cost $650 million to convert the Dome and close to $1 billion to use some of the Metrodome to build a new stadium. ... The NCAA has promised the Twin Cities early-round NCAA men's basketball tournament games sometime between 2012 and '16 provided the area has a facility than can handle it. According to Bill Lester, who runs the Metrodome, officials here would have to turn down 2012 and '13 because it is possible a new Vikings stadium would be under construction at that time.

Rob Moor, chief executive officer of the Timberwolves, said everybody in the basketball operations department except for Kevin McHale continues to be on the payroll. Assistant coach Jerry Sichting will run the Wolves team in the Las Vegas Summer League this week.

Former Gophers hockey player Scott Bell, now the head coach at Hamline, was a candidate for a Gophers assistant coaching job when Mike Hastings was hired last year. Now Hastings has left Minnesota to be an assistant at Nebraska-Omaha.