A week ago the Minnesota Twins lost 7-4 to the Chicago White Sox at home to drop them seven games under .500 at 64-71.
A week later and they haven’t gained any ground in the division because they lost that series to the South Siders, failed to sweep the Detroit Tigers and lost again to the Pale Hose 4-1 on Friday to once again send them seven games south of the border.
And that’s not going to get it done to make the postseason. As Twins radio play-by-play voice Kris Atteberry said at the conclusion of Friday’s game:
“The hill just got a little steeper.”
It sure did. All the firepower they generated against Motown went missing because they scored only one run on a Josh Bell dinger, his 18th. Otherwise the team was 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left nine men on base.
They try again tomorrow. Taj Bradley gets the ball.
Extra innings…
–The Twins are 67-74. They are seven games back in the division and 4.5 games out of the wild card race.
–Zebby Matthews was a perfect 5-0 in August, but he is 0-1 in September after he served up all four runs in the loss on four hits. How does a team score four runs on four hits? Three of the four hits were home runs. He is now 9-9 on the season with a 4.69 ERA.
–The White Sox are a good team at home, sporting a 42-27 record at Rate Field. The Twins are not a good road team at 29-40.
–The final wild card spot, as of this writing, is held by the Cleveland Guardians, the luckiest team in baseball. The Guards have a negative run differential, the second fewest runs scored in the American League, a losing record at home, a terrible record against teams with .500 or better records and yet they are two games over .500 at 72-70.
–One stark difference between the Twins and Guards: The Guardians are 25-23 versus the National League while the Twins are 16-29. And why are the Twins so bad against the Senior Circuit? Who knows? It makes no sense.
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