Twins reaching the nexus of suck

Tigers 4

T ins 0

A free ticket and nice weather got me out to Target Field for the 1st time in 2025 on Saturday. It sure wasn't the ballclub.

The Twins have spent the first 2+ weeks of the season confirming all the worst fears of the dwindling number of people who still genuinely care about the franchise as currently constituted.

This particular game was started by Chris Paddack, who came in with an ERA of almost 18. Never a good sign when a starting pitcher has numbers like that after 2 starts. But he wasn't the issue today. He pitched 5 innings and gave up 2 runs. Not amazing, but fine. 

The problem was, as usual, the absolutely horrible lineup. The Twins are near the bottom of the league in all variety of hitting categories. They don't hit for power or average or draw walks or do anything.

This particular game was pitiful even for them. They never even advanced a single runner to 3rd base. Jose Miranda got caught mindlessly wandering off 2nd midway through the game, a mistake that got him shipped off to the minors after the game.

What a boring, lifeless team. But it makes sense. The owners are known to be looking to sell. So they don't give a shit. Everyone in the front office knows the odds of them sticking around under new ownership are minimal. Rocco Baldelli is a useless figurehead. But the Pohlads aren't going to fire anyone and bring in new people, costing them more money.

And all the failures of roster building and player development have brought us here too. The Twins have spent a decade-plus having all these highly touted prospects come up and never rise above sporadic success at best. That's when they're even on the field and not hurt, like everyone is all the time. The organization clearly is not set up to have players succeed. 

So we have a lineup with guys like Trevor Larnach and Matt Wallner and Edouard Julien doing nothing, whatever is left of Byron Buxton, a collection of veteran retreads, and of course Carlos Correa, whose return signing is looking like a huge mistake. 

Nothing works. Nothing has worked out. 

Oh, but we had that playoff series win 2 years ago. Sure, a mighty wild card series win. But I said it then, that if that marked the peak of this era of Twins baseball, that would be a disaster. Well, here we are. A franchise that is at its rock bottom since the early 2000s. 

Nothing is coming to save this team. The Pohlads will sell eventually, and hopefully to someone who cares about winning and will show even basic respect to the fanbase, but it's going to take a long time to even get back to where we thought this franchise was just 18 months ago.