"Joe Mauer returned to action Sunday after missing two games -- and resumed his domination of Angels righthander Joel Pineiro.

In the fourth inning, Mauer drove a 3-2 sinker that was up a little and on the inside part of the plate over the right-center field wall for a solo homer and the Twins' only run in their 4-1 loss to Los Angeles.

Mauer was 1-for-2 with a walk vs. Pineiro, dropping his career batting average to .667 (16-for-24) against him. It had been .682.

"I don't know what it is," Mauer said. "He's got a lot of movement on a lot of his pitches. For some reason I have some success off of him."

It was only Mauer's second home run of the season. His other one came July 27 at Texas.

He was the designated hitter after missing two games because of an upper respiratory infection and fluid in his ear. Mauer added to that diagnosis Sunday.

"I had an infection," he said. "The biggest thing that kept me out was that I was having episodes of vertigo [and] I had fluid in my ear. I went out to take ground balls a couple days ago and I was getting that spinning feeling. That's calmed down. I'm still not feeling the greatest, but I was able to get rid of that, at least."

He ran sprints and hit in the batting cage before Sunday's game and felt ready to go. When he will be able to catch again is unknown."