Things are not going well for the Minnesota Twins, as the wheels are flying off the clown car as it barrels toward the finish line of the season.
With just a few weeks left, the Twins' chances of making the postseason remains high but it's far from a certainty. This weekend was a painful reminder of that, as Minnesota was drop kicked by the Kansas City Royals in a three-game sweep that sinks them further down the AL Central.
Minnesota was just 3.5 games out of first place a few days ago, but finish the weekend five games behind the Guardians but also 2.5 games behind the Royals. The season is far from cooked, but things have slipped to the point where the Twins need to start looking in their rearview at the Detroit Tigers.
Winning the division was always the long route to the postseason, but the Twins' wild card chances are now in danger as well. Detroit is just 3.5 games behind Minnesota, with the Seattle Mariners right there as well.
All of this could have been easily avoided, but meltdowns like what we saw this weekend are starting to stack up to push the Twins to the brink of the playoff picture.
Rocco Baldelli calls out Twins after getting swept by Royals
Minnesota has looked absolutely lifeless over the last month, and it seems the team is breaking down at the worst posisble time. Injuries have piled up, good players are making bad decisions, and it's all adding up to thoroughly annoy manager Rocco Baldelli.
After Sunday's embarrassing loss, which polished off a weekend sweep in Kansas City, Baldelli tersely called his team out in one of his shortest postgame press conferences ever.
“That was an unprofessional series of baseball we played and that’s all I’ve got for you," Baldelli saidafter the game before taking no further questions.
Baldelli didn't field any questions, and had a closed door meeting with the team instead. It comes as the Twins have lost 14 of their last 20 games, and seem to have lost the fire we saw out of them earlier in the year.
In months past, when the Twins went down they were never out and found a way to claw back. Now it seems like no lead is safe and any deficit is too daunting to overcome. Injuries to Byron Buxton, Carlos Correa, and Joe Ryan haven't helped but it seems push is coming to shove as the Twins being to run out of time to turn things around.
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