by By Kelsie Smith ksmith@pioneerpress.com , St. Paul Pioneer Press

Maybe, but fortunately for the 34,710 at the Metrodome, not on Saturday.

With his hitting streak on the line and his power surge idling at two home runs this month after he slugged 10 in May, Mauer saved that 0-for-4 exception for another day, stroking a leadoff homer in the sixth inning. The shot to left moved Mauer's hitting streak to 12 games and his homer total to 14 -- a career high reached in an astonishingly speedy 167 at-bats -- and Jason Kubel mimicked that dramatic, streak-extending effort in the eighth.

Kubel's two-run shot off former Twin LaTroy Hawkins pushed his career-best hitting streak to 11 games and pulled Minnesota within one run, but Mauer and Kubel's continued heroics weren't enough.

The Twins scored three runs with Scott Baker on the mound, but he couldn't hold Houston to anything less through his 6 1/3 innings. Baker left the game in favor of Sean Henn with one out and a runner on in the seventh, and the lefty promptly gave up a run-scoring double, recorded one out, then allowed a two-run home run to Astros leadoff man Michael Bourn.

Houston's four-run seventh put it up 5-3, and in the eighth Luis Ayala offered up the 2-2 pitch that Lance Berkman shot over the baggie in right to make it 6-3.

Up against 37-year-old veteran right-hander Brian Moehler, the Twins managed just four hits, though three cleared the fences.

Batting leadoff for the sixth time this season and the 11th time in his career, Brendan Harris pounced on Moehler's second pitch of the night, sending it into the left-field stands for the shortstop's first career leadoff homer and fourth HR of the season.

Delmon Young brought just three extra-base hits into this series, and matched that total in just two games with two doubles Friday and a solo home run to left in his first at-bat Saturday. It was Young's second homer of the season and first since April 12 at Chicago.

In the fifth, Houston catcher Ivan Rodriguez was so sure Carlos Gomez foul tipped a pitch on a 1-2 checked swing that he stood up and threw the ball to third base, starting the around-the-horn routine, but first-base umpire Tony Randazzo ruled Gomez didn't foul it.

That got Houston manager Cecil Cooper going in the dugout, so much so that home plate ump Jerry Layne tossed Cooper before the skipper even made it to the field. Cooper jumped up to the steps after his ejection, saying: "Tell me why? Why?" during a prolonged post-toss argument.

Gomez finally stepped into the box and drew a walk, then was caught in a pickoff, rundown. But he juked Berkman so far down the base path that Berkman threw late to second and Gomez slid in safely under the tag.

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