He moves around the stadium with lightning speed. His hand extends steps before you meet to shake it. With a smile, Twins President Dave St. Peter says, “Great to have you at the ballpark.”
My response, “How are you?” And without hesitation, St. Peter replies, “Great.”
There’s no way to sugarcoat it. This is a Twins team that expected much more this summer. After a winning 2015 that ended four consecutive 90-loss seasons, this Twins campaign has taken a hard turn south. Players will tell you their only job is to get it turned around.
At 11 wins and 33 losses before the month of June has arrived, there’s a lot of work to do. But a win here and a win there could mean the difference between winding up one of the worst teams in MLB history.
In a town where fans constantly complain about their teams and losing and lack of championships, some already are turning to the gloomiest scenarios. Reporter Marino Eccher writes that the 2016 Twins are well on the way to being one of the worst Twins team ever.
Baseball’s modern era has had some duds like the 1916 Philadelphia A’s at 36-117, the 1962 New York Mets at 40-120 and the 2003 Detroit Tigers with a 43-119 record.
Should the Twins win 8-10 games a month – minimum – the rest of the way, that losing forecast is avoided.
It was late last April 2015 when the Twins were off to a rocky start that Torii Hunter chided me. The Twins fan favorite told me, not only would the Twins improve, he said that every team goes through highs and lows, in every season, and the Twins would rally.
So if you factor in the Torii template, even with all the negativity swirling about, fans can breathe a bit easier for the time being. You can find the worst baseball teams of all time and the Twins are not on that list.
The Twins still have 116 games to go this season. Are playoffs a possibility? Likely not. But there is still time to hope and time to be a fan who believes. Even if that window is closing a little more every day.
