The hardest part about watching the AL Central race is the feeling that the Twins should (a word I hate to use for all sorts of reasons) be four games ahead of the pack right now instead of sitting third — four games behind the Tigers and with a 10-game road trip coming up when play resumes on Friday. The good news is twofold: The hollow part is the accident of geography and knowing that the Twins would likely be in last place in they swapped places with Baltimore and played in the AL East. The heartening part is that even a flawed team can win the AL Central and go on to the postseason, where winning a short series can be an accident based on where and whom you play (see ‘87 Twins) and losing one can be because of the poor play of a seemingly solid team (see ‘08 Cubs).

Forgive me if I use the All-Star break to repeat a few of the themes we’ve talked about in Section 220 as we prepare for the final pull. Here goes:

*The Twins are hoping too much. Yes, I hope that Alexi Casilla works out in his latest return to the Twins. But a .340 average at Rochester doesn’t mean much more than the stats put up by Sean Henn before his promotion. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. We can say “Freddy Sanchez” until we’re blue in the face, but I’m not seeing that happening. If the latest Casilla audition falls through, I think we’ll be watching more Nick Punto than many would like. I do hope that everyone who was convinced based on last season that Matt Tolbert was the answer to any infield question — second, shortstop or third — has finally been dissuaded of that notion.

*While the Twins have appeared to find their stride in the bullpen, it took a bit long to get to where we’re at today. What if the Twins had jettisoned Luis Ayala before they tried to sneak Craig Breslow through waivers? (A reasonable question.) What if Bobby Keppel’s performance — 12 1/3 IP, 1 earned run — isn’t a fluke and could have been anticipated in Florida? (An unreasonable one.) What if the Twins have gone after the “correct” arm to upgrade the bullpen from season’s start? Options change over time because teams surprise themselves by being in postseason contention (Houston and Colorado, for example). So now the main name has become Matt Capps of the Pirates, a closer who would become a set-up man here. He has three solid seasons (2006-08) behind him and a 6.21 ERA this season that has been fattened by three lousy outings (including Sunday), in which he has given up 12 of his 20 earned runs in 2 1/3 of his 27 innings. Can the Twins have him in uniform by Friday?

*If he can put up his fh-jul (first half minus July) numbers, Brendan Harris should get 75 percent of the time at shortstop for the rest of the season, even if Casilla works out at second base. Based on any numbers I want to use (other than head-first dives into first base), Harris had outperformed Punto this season. Here’s the best set of defensive stats. If Casilla (or that Mauer guy) can hold down the No. 2 spot in the order, Harris should be more effective batting in the lower third. For whatever reason, it’s just not working  for him batting second.

*One other counter-intuitive way to  get Harris in the lineup would be to let him play third base at times against a lefty starter. Joe Crede has continued his odd streak of 35 straight home runs against right-handed pitchers (going back to the start of 2007) and has a slugging percentage of .306 against lefties (versus .511 against right-handers). The numbers were equally crazy-skewed last season and, given that Gardy is concerned about keeping Crede healthy, that should be one more option in the bag.

*Span-Gomez-Cuddyer is the best everyday outfield with Young/Kubel-Span-Cuddyer the main back-up model. For every cruddy Cuddyer at-bat, there are two dreadful Delmon at-bats. You can nitpick Cuddyer’s statistics and find situations in which he hasn’t done well, but overall he has better stats with runners in scoring position this season and solid overall numbers by any reasonable standard.  Span and Gomez in left and center is the best defensive combo, easily, and if they played together on a more frequent basis, they might stop running into each other on fly balls to left-center.

*Two of my Facebook friends attended Sunday’s game and found it momentous enough to post that they were in the Metrodome to watch Joe Mauer strike out four times. The good thing about some of his (very, very relative term) struggles is that the .400 sideshow will wrap itself up and go away. There was never any chance … and now the question will be how many people start going nasty if Mauer’s average drops to only .330 or so.

*Am I the only one who wants to see Jose Morales get more of Mike Redmond’s at-bats?

*I’m concerned about… Kevin Slowey’s wrist thing, the Casilla/second base thing… the Harris/Punto shortstop thing… the back-up catcher thing… the Gomez-in-center thing (as much as I support it)… the bullpen thing… the Crede-vs.-lefties thing… Glen Perkins and Francisco Liriano taking care of things… and a few other things that you can probably add to this list.

*I’m happy about enough other things with this team, despite its struggles and underperformance, that I think stuff can be straightened out in the second half for the Twins to have a reasonable chance to be playing in October — and I’m not going to be the guy who dwells on the accident of geography that allows that to happen.

Have a good break. Don’t worry about Mauer messing up his swing in the Home Run Derby. Thanks to the guest posters for their recent contributions. (We’ll have a couple more later in the week). Feel free to send one here for this week or later this summer. Thanks for reading all of our baseball blogs.

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