CLEVELAND, Ohio– Behind the arm of Mark Prior, the SBS-X’s only two time World Series champions are making a push to make the playoffs for the 4th consecutive season with a 7-0 win vs the Cleveland Indians yesterday at Jacobs Field.

The Twins, who started the first two months of the season slowly at 25-25, dominated every phase of the game vs Cleveland yesterday, but the performance of Twins pitcher Mark Prior was the story, as he struck out a career high 17 Indian hitters over 8 innings of shutout baseball.

Every Indian hitter struck out at least once, with Bill Hall collecting the “Golden Sombrero” with 4 strikeouts in 4 plate appearances.

“His stuff was electric today,” Twins General Manager Chris Condit was quoted as saying after the game. “Anytime your starter goes out and strikes out as many hitters as Mark did yesterday, you have to be happy.”

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire was urged by Condit to swap to a 4 man starting rotation when the Twins traded away two starters in Jon Garland and Mark Buehrle to acquire Derek Jeter on June 15th. The Twins are 32-21 since then and have taken over the American League Central lead for the first time all season with a 2.5 game lead over the Chicago White Sox.

The Twins received news that Aaron Cook who was injured for 10 months while pitching in middle relief last season was ready to come off the DL and had been rehabbing so that he would be prepared to start when he made his return.

However, Condit has decided to send Cook to AAA Rochester and sticking with the 4 man rotation rather than plugging Aaron in as the #5 guy.

“Aaron has tremendous movement on his pitches and great control. He could probably be plugged in as the #5 starter on our team right now. However, with the success our 4 guys have had this season, Eric’s (Milton) having a career year and leads the MLB with 15 wins, Brad (Radke) has regained his form from the championship years, and of course with two horses like Mark & Johan, it’s hard to not want to keep those 4 going right along the way they’ve been the past two months,” Condit said.

The Twins have an off-day today before heading back to the Metrodome for a 3 game set vs the New York Yankees. Good seats still available! For tickets, call 1-877-GO-TWINS!