…number 34, holyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy cow, dude!

First Pitch: 3:10 pm CDT

TV: Twins.TV, FS1 / ~ / Radio: TIBN, WCCO 830, The Wolf 102.9 FM

During the early 2010s I turned obsessively to Out of the Park Baseball and dove headfirst into the top-shelf spreadsheet simulation game, in large part because I was watching Minnesota Twins teams and thinking, “Oh my God, I literally HAVE to be able to make a better team than this.”

For no particular reason, and certainly not one directly tied to present-day team performance, I’ve been thinking about that game a lot recently, and what it can teach a person about roster construction — particularly, the perils of ever entering a season thinking “you know what? It will probably be fine.”

In a similar milieu, as I watch league-wide highlights at the end of every night, I’m continually struck by the fact that most of the other purportedly “good” teams seem to be playing a completely different offensive game, with some confidence interval that yes! — the team is going to score tonight.

Not so much for the 13-20, 8 GB, fourth-place Minnesota Twins, who have lost more games than only the Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago White Sox, and Colorado Rockies, an abysmal list of compatriots. For all the side-eyed potential that a 5-1 homestand brought, a nearly immediate four-game losing streak against opponents with winning records has brought the weight of reality back onto a team that has has scored 7 runs since Monday.

Nearly every article I’ve written so far this season has conveyed the sentiment that the Twins will be using the forthcoming game as an opportunity to get back on track. But with the calendar officially in May, I’m not sure that Minnesota WILL be getting back on track. At this stage, it’s entirely possible that the team isn’t “struggling to gain momentum,” and is instead genuinely playing at a 63-99 pace.

Nevertheless, Bailey Ober is back on the mound today in yet another attempt to right the ship, as long as this road series at Fenway is still technically up for grabs.

GO TWINS GO!