The RMS Twinstanic sinking into the break.

The apologists will tell you that if, on opening day, you were told the Twins would hit the all star break at 50-44 with a 2 game division lead, you would have taken that. 

That's true, but we live in the real world and the path the Twins have taken to get there is not so clean.

This is a flat out bad ballclub right now. They got drubbed 11-0 at home by the White Sox today, capping a dreadful 4 game series loss, which caps a 23-28 stretch since they hit their high water mark way back on May 24th. That's nearly a third of a season now in which they have been solidly below .500, and against a pretty easy schedule in that time.

Everything has fallen apart. The lineup just got shut out for the 11th time this season. They have some good individual numbers, but as a unit they are the same unclutch group they've been for years. Unless a ball is going over the fence they cannot score runs. LOBsters everywhere. Large stretches.of games seemingly mailed in. 

The bullpen fiascos have been well chronicled. Emilio Pagan singlehandedly cost them 4 games against Cleveland. No lead is ever safe. No help ever comes. Anytime one of these clowns puts up a zero it feels like an upset. 

The one part of the team that was more than carrying its weight had been the starting rotation. But, since Wes Johnson left (coincidence?) that has fallen off too. There's the ever present issue of Rocco not letting starters go longer in good starts, but lately he's had to pull guys early on merit. 

Even a few weeks ago this looked like, yeah, a likely division winner still, that needed to deal for 2 or 3 relievers. Now? They clearly need too much help for one trade deadline to fix...assuming this front office is even truly interested in fixing it. I mean, trying to fix it means they screwed up constructing this roster. 

I loathe Rocco Baldelli. He is an empty vessel of a manager, a terrible tactician and handler of pitchers, and a poor leader. There is no way the veterans on the team respect the guy. I will forever think the Wes Johnson departure doesn't happen with good leadership here. 

The Falvine duo though is looking more and more like a bust of a hire. These guys were hired largely due to their perceived successes elsewhere at developing pitching. Well we are 5 years into this now and where is the pitching? They identified Joe Ryan and Jhoan Duran in trades. They traded for Sonny Gray, and earlier Kenta Maeda. But the backbone of any organization is the pitching pipeline. And where is it? Why are we still trying to wring juice out of turnips like Devin Smeltzer? Why are most of the.bullpen callups this year waiver claim guys and veteran castoffs? Where are the legit young pitchers with actual upside that every other franchise is able to call on? We have nothing.

Help is not coming. This front office didn't even bother to add to a 2019 roster that maybe could have done something. There are no relievers coming. There are no starters on the way. They've already basically announced that they're going to treat getting Maeda back as their big add. Or if you want a bat, hey, Miguel Sano will be back soon to strike out a bunch. 

I won't even be mad when they do nothing. This Twins team needs too much help, due to the previous failures of this front office. They may still back into a division title, unless Chicago has legitimately found themselves. But there is ZERO chance that this is the Twins team to end the playoff futility. Absolute best case scenario is winning the division and maybe winning a best of 3 against a wild card, before getting curb-stomped by the Yankees or Astros.

That's not worth all-in moves. I would go the other way and sell. Carlos Correa is not returning next year no matter what he says. Deal him for a haul. Deal any pending free agents for whatever you can get. Maybe someone would want Archer or Bundy or Duffey. Frankly this team has had their chance to distinguish themselves and have been proving for 7 weeks they don't deserve the faith that they can make a run.