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Well, Castillo was in the lineup and the Royals lost, and Long went 0-for-3 with a strikeout against Santana. In the announcers' defense (one was former Kansas City pitcher Paul Splittorff and I didn't catch the other guy's name), they were very tolerable considering they were announcing for the team the Twins were playing. And if that doesn't make sense to you, you've obviously never watched your favorite team play the White Sox on WGN.

With that said, they gushed over Castillo each time he came to the plate in such a way that I can't even fathom the things they would say about him if he wasn't a horrible player. They made a guy with a .295 career slugging percentage in 10 major-league seasons sound like Johnny Bench. Also, at one point the play-by-play guy actually said the following words: "The Royals had been having a dickens of a time scoring runs."

My theory about Santana has always been that you can tell when he's really pitching well when he gets a lot of weak pop ups to right field. Strikeouts are also an indicator of him feeling good, obviously, but he has shown in the past that he can get strikeouts even when he's not quite right. Within the first two innings last night, Santana got both Tony Graffanino and Eli Marrero to pop up weakly to Jacque Jones in shallow right field.

Santana induced another weak pop up to right field against Joe McEwing in the third inning, but it dropped for a base hit. Last year, when Santana was really rolling, those were all gobbled up for outs. This year quite a few of them are falling for hits, which is why his batting average against isn't very Santana-like. McEwing's blooper really hurt, because instead of the inning being over, David DeJesus and Graffanino followed with consecutive singles, scoring McEwing, and Mike Sweeney scored himself, DeJesus, and Graffanino with a three-run homer down the left-field line.

Santana was missing high and outside all night to right-handed hitters, and I'm wondering if the blister on his middle finger is hurting his grip and control. He managed to get back on track after the ugly third inning, but it ended up being yet another "except for" start. As in, Santana was incredibly dominant and pitched extremely well, except for those four straight hits in the third inning.

Santana's final line: 7 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, 0 BB, 10 SO. He didn't pick up the win and his ERA rose 0.32 points to 4.32, but Santana did improve his strikeout-to-walk ratio to an amazing 37-to-2 in 25 innings on the year. For those of you without a calculator, that works out to 13.32 strikeouts per nine innings and 18.5 strikeouts for every walk.

Of course, Rivas later become the first middle infielder I have ever seen lose an infield flare "in the lights." It was one of the strangest, most awkward fielding plays I have ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Incidentally, Rivas is now hitting .250/.290/.250. That's zero extra-base hits and one walk, if you're curious.

The Twins' disturbing lack of bench strength was exposed last night when Castro was left in to bat with two men on base and two outs in the eighth inning of a 5-4 game. The bench at that point? Two no-hit catchers, Mike Redmond and Corky Miller, and two middle infielders, Nick Punto and Jason Bartlett. Meanwhile, Michael Restovich is batting like .750 with the Rockies.

Matthew LeCroy and Hunter led off the fourth inning with back-to-back singles and Jones walked to load the bases with no outs and Ford up. Ford laid off two breaking balls out of the strike zone to run the count full. Then, just as the Kansas City announcers informed everyone that the Twins were zero for their last eight with the bases loaded, Ford popped up the 3-2 pitch into shallow left field for an easy out. Terry Tiffee followed with an equally easy inning-ending double play.

Make that 0-for-10, including an astounding six double plays. That means the Twins had gotten zero hits and used up 16 outs in the last 10 times they were in the single most beneficial situation a team can possibly be in. In the sixth, after Hunter doubled and Jones was intentionally walked, Ford drew a 3-2 walk to once again load the bases, this time with one out and Tiffee up. He failed to get a hit, but at least made his out in medium center field, so Hunter could tag and score from third to tie the game. Rivas then finished the inning with a ground out, stranding two runners.

The Twins finally broke through in the eighth inning, when they loaded the bases for yet another time with one out. Shannon Stewart was up and he hit another vomit-inducing, here-comes-a-double-play grounder to shortstop, but this one miraculously snuck past Angel Berroa and into left field. It broke the 0-for-10 streak with the bases loaded and scored Ford from third base with the go-ahead run.

Al Newman sent Tiffee home from second base too, but Long threw him out at the plate easily. It was a poor decision by Newman, as the grounder was hit right in front of Tiffee, so he had to actually hold up for a second to make sure it got through without hitting him in the leg. No one will remember that though, since Joe Nathan shut things down in the ninth to preserve the one-run lead and get the win.