Yankees 5, Twins 1

Moose goes to 13 wins, and pitching better than he has in five years.

Given that he now has a fastball in the upper-80's, and given the almost magical location and movement of his curve, knuckle-curve, and change, will Moose now become the late 00's version of the late-70s/early 80's Tommy John, whose sinker ate up ground balls in the thick Dodger/Yankee Stadia grass, and who seemed at times to be handing the ball to the catcher?

For all Moose's dominance today (or, one should say, in the shadow of Moose's dominance), the game came down to two batters.

The situation: Bottom fifth, one out. Cano on second, Melky on first. Molina hits a room-service two-hop DP grounder to Twin shortstop Nick Punto. Punto field the ball smartly and throws to second baseman Alexi Casilla--who, about six feet out of DP position--takes the throw in stride, touches second base for the second out, and starts off the field . . . thus allowing Molina, racing up the line as he can (but about as slow as a beer truck in reverse) to be safe at first.

Whoops.

Perkins, the Twins pitcher, visibly explodes at Casilla, angrily holding up one finger, shouting "One out! One out!" A veteran pitcher (a Mussina?) might have worked around such a blunder. Perkins instead, with steam coming out of his ears, gives up a double to left to light-hitting Justin Christian. Cano scores easily; third-base coach Bobby Meachem, looking suddenly like a gambler who'd hit on 16 ten times in a row, sends Molina, legs pumping . . . and . . . safe.

2-0. With Mussina cruising. You could hear it in Kay's and Leiter's voices: probably, the game was over.

Soon, it was over for real.

Now: A day off. Then the Red Sox.