Positives.

1.  This win was just what the Twins needed to forget the past week.  I know it's helped me have at least a bit more confidence and move on.

2. Gomez has slowly gotten better throughout the year, is having a great July and has been getting more playing time in place of Delmon. 

3.  Although this past week was incredibly disappointing the Twins went 4-6 on a road trip that included two of the better teams in the league in Texas and Anaheim.  Two of the losses were fluky (the epic collapse and the Nathan blown TWO RUN lead).  Then again it seems like the Twins have been losing a lot of games they should be winning this season.  However, if you had told me the Twins would go 4-6 before the road trip, I would have been mildly disappointed but alright with it.  However after the near sweep of Texas and the first 6 innings on Monday I was thinking a 6 or 7 win road trip was a definite possibility.  It's the way they lost some of the games that made it depressing not the number of games lost.  Thankfully this isn't NCAA football and how the games were lost doesn't really matter.

4.  Um, Mauer and Morneau are still Twins and are awesome.

5.  We get to play the White Sox in the Metrodome and hopefully they'll suck there like they normally do. 

Negatives

1.  The starting pitching has been inconsistent to bad.  Baker was decent this road trip and Swarzak was great today.  Blackburn's ability might be catching up with him sadly, he's better than he was this week but probably not as good as he was in the first half.  Slowey's still gone and Liriano is doing his best performance of Jekyll and Hyde this year.  What makes it worse is he changes from inning to inning at times.  Baker has been better but still very up and down, at least he's been more up than down recently.

2.  Casilla isn't showing a whole lot of reason for hope with a batting line of .125 /.263/.125/.388 on the road trip.  However he was bad enough to convince Gardy to put him in the 9 hole and maybe, just maybe he was bad enough to convince Bill Smith to go after a 2B who will last beyond this year and isn't closer to 40 than 25.  Say it with me now, SANCHEZ SANCHEZ SANCHEZ SANCHEZ.

3.  Punto is still starting.  He has been better since his injury return in June with a .350 OBP.  He's been drawing a lot of walks to get his OBP up there but I don't expect that to continue at the current rate.

4.  The bullpen has been overworked this week and if they don't get a break soon I have a feeling we'll begin to see an increase in the meltdown/FAIL! stat across the board. 

Top Trade Targets

1. Freddy Sanchez

Of all the players that are reasonable to acquire he is the clear cut best name mentioned in relation to the Twins.  He'll cost a bit more but he could be the one extra piece that really vaults the offense of this team.  Imagine a lineup that looks like this for the rest of this year and next.

Span
Sanchez
Mauer
Morneau
Cuddy/Kubel
Kubel/Cuddy
Crede/Harris  . . . Buscher (depends on Crede's health)  oh, and Valencia for 2010
Harris/Punto
Gomez

If the Twins could consistently put that lineup out there they really only have the hole of Punto who would hopefully be put on a timeshare with Harris.  Many were confident of a Harris Buscher combo preseason and I think with more regular playing time Buscher would hit much better especially only facing righties.  Gomez might not be great but he's greatly improved lately and hopefully he can keep it up.  Oh, and I just read this about our friend Mr. Sanchez.

2.  Jarrod Washburn

I know we all scoffed at the possibility of him being a Twin last year but if he can put up results close to what he has so far this year he could really help this rotation out.  It would be nice to get him for a AA or AAA starter rather than a guy who has shown the ability to pitch in the Majors like Perkins but at the same time we can't overvalue Perkins.  I'd almost rather give up Perkins than a guy like Mulvey and certainly before Swarzak.  Washburn is close to being a type B free agent and if he continues to pitch like he has he should have a chance to move up to that level.

3.  Orlando Cabrera 

See Jesse's post on this guy.  I'm not super interested unless he's cheap and Wuertz is coming along with him.

There are other guys I wouldn't mind seeing but these are the ones I've seen most linked to the Twins that I could actually see them acquiring.  With the new stadium coming the Twins need to make a move.  Sanchez makes the most sense of all these players as he's more than a 6 month rental.  Who knows, if things go well he could be our next Shannon Stewart.  I'm not saying he'll be that good but he could be a guy we trade for to have for a short time and ends up being a key piece for a number of years.  A top four of Span, Sanchez, Mauer, and Morneau for the next 3-4 years could be very nice.

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