Madden: No Santana, no problem, as Minnesota tops American League Central

Hey Bill...your crispy Oreste & His Queensland Orchestra 78 is skipping again.

This is probably not going to be much consolation for Hank Steinbrenner, but if he hasn’t noticed, the Minnesota Twins without Johan Santana presently have a better record than the Yankees without Johan Santana. So what exactly are we to make of this?

Well, for one thing, it is far too early - five years too early, if you ask the Twins - to start assessing the Santana trade to the Mets, although Son-of-Boss Hank has been more than willing to assess the non-trade of Santana to the Yankees. The immediate residue of that is Phil Hughes on the disabled list at least until July and Melky Cabrera gradually continuing to emerge as a better-than-average everyday center fielder.

Even if the latter development proves to be a stroke of fortune for the Yankees, should they fail to make the playoffs, one suspects we’ll be hearing how they could have gotten along just as well with Brett Gardner in center field while going all the way to the World Series with a rotation of Santana, Andy Pettitte, Mike Mussina and Joba Chamberlain.