By Mike Berardino

Pioneer Press

DETROIT — Ervin Santana might lack his traditional mid-90s velocity as he works back from February finger surgery, but the Twins’ veteran right-hander saved his best fastball Friday night for his postgame remarks.

Asked his reaction to the trade that shipped popular closer Fernando Rodney to the Oakland A’s 24 hours earlier, Santana seemed to brush back the Twins’ forward-thinking front office after this 5-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers.

“It’s tough, especially when we’re only 10 games out and we have two months left,” Santana said. “Everybody’s like, ‘They gave up.’ We’re not giving up, but they did. They took our pieces away, and it’s difficult to play without our good pieces. You know what I mean? So we just have to play with what we have and try to win games.”

Ron Gardenhire’s Tigers, shaking off a winless West Coast trip, took a 4-3 lead in the season series despite managing just three hits. Yes, a dozen games remain to be played between these two forlorn clubs.

Having already lost six key contributors to sell-off deals in the past fortnight, Santana was asked if he and other remaining veterans are bracing for their own relocation program during the August waiver period.

“I don’t know because we don’t have control over that,” he said. “We’re just here. We play one day at a time, so anything can happen.”

Maybe it was sad reality setting in for a pair of teams that entered a combined 28 1/2 games behind the first-place Cleveland Indians in the American League Central. Whatever the reason, this loss was somehow more disheartening than some of the Twins’ 12 walk-off defeats.

Not even the sight of rookie center fielder Jake Cave face-planting in the dirt as he made the turn on a second-inning double could fully lift the pall.

“It was a lighter moment in a game that didn’t have many of them for us,” Twins manager Paul Molitor said.

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