What would the Twins' record be without all that good ol' fashioned clubhouse chemistry?

The lineup is good enough to contend but it is in a transition to younger players. That explains all the stopgaps. The biggest problem is starting pitching. They lost Baker and are left with Pavano and a bunch of 5th starters. There are no young pitchers they can transition to.

Agree with DL re. starting pitching. This group is mindful of the terrible groups of the mid and late '90s. Or, it might be worse.

Wish I could agree re. the regular lineup.

Span and Willingham look OK. Mauer now at .278 with no power, a far cry from .338 with no power, much less .338 with power. Morneau on DL, his replacement has 2 RBI in 67 AB. From Cuddyer, Kubel and Delmon Young to Komatsu, Clete Thomas and Trevor Plouffe around the OF in 1 year.

And worst of all, the middle IF where the Twins 2 years ago had competent MLers J.J. Hardy and Orlando Hudson whom they moved in favor of Nishioka and an unproven minor league pitcher and Alexi Casilla. Casilla is now perhaps the 4th best Twins regular. This is not a reflection of Casilla as much as of the Twins.

Similar Doumit is perhaps the 3rd best hitter. This reflects the lowly state of the Twins as much as it does Doumit. Doumit would have been an OK fill-in as the #8 or #9 or #10 guy as recently as 2 years ago, now he is perhaps #3. Reminds me of Bobby Darwin from the Twins glory days of the late '70s. Best of a bad lot.

How could a GM (Bill Smith) have done this much damage in just a couple of years????

Mauer looks fine, just a week ago he looked like an all-star. Morneau on DL is concerning, they aren't a contender without him.

I really don't know why they didn't grab another RF/1B type this offseason. There were several available. There still are some available.

Hudson doesn't appear to be a competent major leaguer any more. They were just a year early on that one.

Of course none of this really matters much seeing how they have the worst rotation in baseball by a long shot. Their starting pitchers are terrible and their solution to a terrible staff full of pitch-to-contact groundball pitchers this was to add another pitch-to-contact, groundball pitcher in Marquis. They don't play in the dome anymore. What they need is a power lefty like Santana. At this point any competent LHP would do.

Sticking together is what good waffles do.

Going to the game tonight - bought the tickets months ago for my brothers visit (and then he canceled). I wish I could say I was excited, but I guess even a bad looking game can be good.

At least the weather looks nice.

Tonight's game could make history if Weaver can pitch another no-hitter.

The lineup is good enough to contend but it is in a transition to younger players.

I'm gonna have to disagree on this as well. The lineup, while not as bad as the pitching because at least they have a good position player, is somewhere between abysmal and terrible, and two of the only three above-average players (Mauer and Willingham) have very lengthy injury histories, with the third coming off a serious concussion (Span). Projecting Morneau to ever do anything again is more than I'm willing to do. This leaves them with a 5-9 of Doumit, Valencia, Parmelee, Plouffe/Revere (?), Casilla; none of whom are major league starters (Doumit hits acceptably for a catcher. They're playing him at DH). That is brutally bad. At this point they might as well just let the pitchers hit. It can't get too much worse.

#7: Yes, but I can't really hope for that. If it happens I will be glad I went though. I am also now going Thursday - I didn't but those tickets though, oddly tickets are freeing up. Thursday I'll be taking my boys and can leave when they get bored or the Twins are losing by 5 (whichever comes first).

I wish I could say I was excited, but I guess even a bad looking game can be good.

The park's great. Couldn't have spent my tax dollars better myself.

Mauer, Willingham and a band of people who are injured, people who should be in Rochester, people who should be on the bench, people who are severely underachieving and people who were good a few year ago.

#5: Awesome.

As losses mount, Twins vow to stick together

It'd be quite a headline if it read: "As losses mount, Twins vow to disband"

The only question then would be: would anybody attend the dispersal draft?

11 is unfair to Span, he's having a good year. Have you people looked at what it takes to contend in the AL Central?

You know what? The past week has sucked, hard, but the Twins are not this bad. But a week ago, their team OPS+ was 97.....just about average. Without Morneau they'll have problems, but a 5 day history-making slump isn't going to last.

Where else are there positives? Their bullpen has been, against all odds, just fine....right around average. Their schedule is going to get MUCH easier. They've played a total of 2 games against the AL Central, and no one is any good in the AL Central. They've 3+ months until their next really tough road trip. They will have plenty of chances to win ball games the rest of the way. The defense has been bad at 3rd, the OF, and catcher when Doumit is playing, but roster changes seem likely to help that a little. Less Valencia at 3rd, more Doumit and Willingham at DH.

The starting pitching is a mess....no denying that...they've got a combined 6.73 ERA. But with easier opponents and hopefully slightly better defense for the rest of the year, that should regress back to being just bad instead of abysmal. The playoffs are way out of the picture, but if things go ok, they could still play .500 for a big chunk of the season and actually provide some entertainment value. That's probably optimistic, but there's no way things can stay this bad for long.