Glen Perkins remains questionable for Saturday’s start. Manager Ron Gardenhire said Perkins was checked for strep throat today and given medication that should have him feeling better within a couple days.

Nick Blackburn will pitch Friday against the White Sox, and Gardenhire said the Twins will need Brian Duensing ready in relief. If Perkins can’t pitch Saturday and Duensing isn’t needed Friday, Duensing could get the ball on Saturday.

R.A. Dickey threw 33 pitches today after throwing 53 on Tuesday, so he’s probably not an option to start Saturday, Gardenhire said.

0-for-7 against the Yankees

The Twins never led in this series. They finished 0-7 against the Yankees. Four of those losses were by one run, and two were by two runs.

“Not a mental block; they just outplayed us,” Gardenhire said. “I think if you witnessed the games in Yankee Stadium, we had chances to win, and it’s not a mental block there, it’s one base hit. Here, they were just hot.”

Bring on the White Sox 

With the White Sox coming in next, the Twins don’t have time to feel sorry for themselves.

“We were charged up going into this series, and it didn’t work out,” Gardenhire said. “We have to go out and perform, and we didn’t perform very well against this team. The White Sox are playing very good baseball, so if we go out and play like we did against the Yankees, we’ll probably get our butts kicked here at home again, and that’s not too much fun.

“We have to make things happen. We have to create havoc, and we didn’t do too much of that in this series at home, and that’s not supposed to happen.”

Today’s lineup quick. Updates later.

Update: Glen Perkins is being checked for strep throat this morning. Nick Blackburn will start Friday against the White Sox.

Manager Ron Gardenhire said Saturday’s start is in question, depending on how Perkins responds. Brian Duensing and Bobby Keppel are options for that start, as is R.A. Dickey.

Update: You can follow us now on Twitter (@JoeCStarTribune, @LaVelleNeal).

Update: Kevin Slowey (strained right wrist) will throw from 60 feet on Friday, and then from 90 feet. He’ll stay in Minnesota during the All-Star break, and likely make a five-inning minor league start, Gardenhire said. Slowey is eligible to return from the DL on July 19.

SS Brendan Harris and 3B Joe Crede are getting standard days off, with a day game after a night game. Gardenhire acknowledged he’s a little concerned about Harris slowing down after playing day after day. A day off here, with the White Sox coming into town on Friday, and then the All-Star break.

Update: The Twins scheduled starters for this weekend’s series with the White Sox are Nick Blackburn (Fri.), TBA (Sat.) and Scott Baker (Sun.). The White Sox are scheduled to counter with John Danks, Gavin Floyd and Mark Buehrle. 

YANKEES (50-34)

1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Nick Swisher, RF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Jorge Posada, C
6. Robinson Cano, 2B
7. Melky Cabrera, LF
8. Cody Ransom, 3B
9. Brett Gardner, CF

Starting pitcher: RH Alfredo Aceves (5-1, 2.03 ERA)

TWINS (43-42)

1. Denard Span, CF
2. Matt Tolbert, 2B
3. Joe Mauer, DH
4. Justin Morneau, 1B
5. Jason Kubel, LF
6. Michael Cuddyer, RF
7. Brian Buscher, 3B
8. Mike Redmond, C
9. Nick Punto, SS

Starting pitcher: LH Francisco Liriano (4-8, 5.49 ERA)

Metrodome. First pitch: 12:10 p.m.

The Twins will send Francisco Liriano to the mound Thursday, trying to avoid another sweep against the Yankees. Liriano held the Yankees to one run on four hits over six innings on May 15 in New York but took a no-decision, when the Yankees came back for three runs off Joe Nathan.

The Yankees will counter with RHP Alfredo Aceves. Here’s an interesting profile on Aceves from the New York Times. The Yankees signed him out of the Mexican League before the 2008 season.

(*) Joe Mauer officially moved into the AL batting lead tonight, at .388, and boy did he earn it. Hard to imagine a tougher trio of pitchers — in terms of their differences and individual degree of difficulty — than A.J. Burnett, Phil Coke and Mariano Rivera. Mauer, of course, went 3-for-5 with a double and a home run.

(*) The Twins are 0-6 against the Yankees, and 6-18 against the AL East.

(*) The White Sox are 16-6 in their past 22 games. And the Tigers overcame Zack Greinke, pushing the Twins 3 1/2 games back in the AL Central.

(*) Some more impressive work by Bobby Keppel tonight. That’s 11 1/3 scoreless innings in four appearances since he arrived from Class AAA Rochester.

“A lot of ground balls,” Manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He just keeps throwing it down there. [His sinker] drops off a table, and it’s huge.”

But Keppel threw 44 pitches in 3 2/3 innings and won’t be available Thursday, Gardenhire said.

Note: You can follow us now on Twitter (@JoeCStarTribune, @LaVelleNeal). Check back here in the morning for the lineups, unless we tweet them first!

1. The Twins are back in third place, but Detroit’s 8-5 victory over KC should be kept in perspective. As Michael Rosenberg notes in today’s Detroit Free Press, Justin Verlander needed 50 pitches to get through the first two innings, the Tigers committed two errors, and their eight runs came on eight hits. The Tigers should get a stiffer test tonight against Zack Greinke.

Frankly, the Tigers aren’t the AL Central team that should scare the Twins the most right now. The White Sox are rolling, and if Kenny Williams can orchestrate a trade for Jake Peavy — only to have Peavy shoot it down — it’s plausible he could land Roy Halladay. A trade like that could single-handedly change this division race.

2. With the Yankees’ bullpen on a serious roll — a 1.74 ERA in their past 21 games — they’ve decided to turn Thursday’s series finale against the Twins into a bullpen game. RHP Alfredo Aceves will get the start. He has a 2.02 ERA, but he hasn’t pitched more than four innings since his eight-inning start for Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes Barre on April 29. The Yanks need a starter for Thursday because Chien-Ming Wang is on the DL with a strained right shoulder.

3. The Twins have promoted RHP Deolis Guerra from Class A Fort Myers to Class AA New Britain. (Seth Stohs had this last night, and here’s a story from Ken Lipshez in the New Britain Herald.) Guerra, 20, is one of four players the Twins received from the Mets for Johan Santana and seemed very intriguing at the time, since he had climbed to high-A for two starts by age 17 in 2006 and shown a hard fastball in the All-Star Futures Game the following year.

But the bottom line is the Mets were rushing him. At 6-foot-5, Guerra is a great kid from Venezuela, but he’s a project as a pitcher. The Twins have been trying to refine his mechanics, but he was back in the Florida State League again this year and his numbers at Fort Myers (6-8, 4.69 ERA, 86.1 IP, 95 H, 57 K, 25 BB) hardly screamed for a promotion.

I think the Twins are trying to give him a change of scenery. The Mets compounded this problem by inviting Guerra to big league camp in 2008, so that when the Santana deal went down, the Twins felt obligated to invite Guerra to their own big league camp. I remember talking to Guerra about how he’d like to START the 2008 season at Class AA. But he wasn’t ready. The Twins sent him to Fort Myers, and he went 11-9 with a 5.47 ERA, with 71 strikeouts and 71 walks. I’m guessing he was getting a little tired of Florida summers.

Note: Head to La Velle’s blog later for tonight’s starting lineups.

Update: La Velle just heard Glen Perkins has been scratched from tonight’s start with a high fever. So Anthony Swarzak will make tonight’s start for the Twins.

Delmon Young is the DH tonight, and Jason Kubel is on the bench, as the Twins open a three-game series against the Yankees, facing lefthander C.C. Sabathia.

Young is 2-for-12 for his career against Sabathia, while Kubel is 0-for-2.

Twins closer Joe Nathan was named baseball’s Delivery Man of the Month for June, after going 11-for-11 in save opportunities. In 11 2/3 scoreless innings, he allowed four hits and one walk, while notching 18 strikeouts. Nathan also won this award in July 2006 and July 2008.

In my earlier post, I mentioned the Twins’ lousy career numbers against Sabathia. But Scott Baker is 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA in two career starts against the Yankees. Both of those starts came in 2006. Some numbers against him:

Derek Jeter 1-for-5 (.200)
Alex Rodriguez 0-for-5 (.000)
Robinson Cano 1-for-4 (.250)
Mark Teixeira 2-for-5, 1 HR (.400)
Hideki Matsui 1-for-3 (.333)
Jorge Posada 1-for-2 (.500)
Nick Swisher 2-for-9, 1 HR (.222)
Johnny Damon 2-for-6 (.333)
Jose Molina 2-for-6 (.333)

Update: Justin Morneau said he officially declined an invitation to participate in this year’s All-Star Home Run Derby. That conversation took place Monday.

Morneau said he’d love it if Joe Mauer were invited. “I’d have the best seat in the house,” Morneau said.

Manager Ron Gardenhire said Mike Redmond is available to play tonight, and Redmond said his right forearm feels much better.

Kubel is batting .179 against lefties this year, and .346 against righties, so Gardenhire has opted to give him a break against one of the toughest lefthanders in the game. 

YANKEES (48-34)

1. Derek Jeter, SS
2. Johnny Damon, LF
3. Mark Teixeira, 1B
4. Alex Rodriguez, 3B
5. Hideki Matsui, DH
6. Nick Swisher, RF
7. Robinson Cano, 2B
8. Brett Gardner, CF
9. Francisco Cervelli, C

Starting pitcher: LH C.C. Sabathia (7-5, 3.85 ERA)

TWINS (43-40)

1. Denard Span, LF
2. Brendan Harris, SS
3. Joe Mauer, C
4. Justin Morneau, 1B
5. Michael Cuddyer, RF
6. Joe Crede, 3B
7. Delmon Young, DH
8. Carlos Gomez, CF
9. Nick Punto, 2B

Starting pitcher: RH Scott Baker (6-6, 4.99 ERA)

Metrodome. First pitch: 7:10 p.m. TV: FSN