Baseball is a game of inches. Of what-ifs. Of should haves, would haves and could haves. This is rarely more evident than in a 2-1 Twins loss Wednesday night at Target Field, when the go-ahead run scored on a steal of home -- as part of a double steal -- and a potential home run ball just missed going out by perhaps less than a foot.

Ervin Santana was brilliant for the Twins, as he tossed his fourth complete game of the season in a losing effort. He threw 117 pitches (80 strikes), and got his season ERA to 2.99 -- back under 3.00, where it has resided before every start this season, except for this one (3.07 coming into Wednesday).

Santana now has more complete games than the other 29 teams in baseball. It’s true; no other entire team has more than three, while Santana accounts for all four that Twins hurlers have posted this year.

“Those are the toughest games for a manager,” said Paul Molitor of the complete-game loss for Santana. “You see some things get ugly at times, and you get maybe blown out of the water. But you get an effort like that; it’s hard to squander those away. Those are hard to come by.”

Throwing 80 strikes is also a rarity; just two other pitchers have done so this year, as Max Scherzer completed the feat on May 26 against the Padres while Chris Sale did so against the Blue Jays on April 20. In fact, prior to Scherzer doing it, Sale had the previous three times it had been done.

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