Perspective.

So the Twins lost again, and a lot of us are thinking this is The Beginning of the End.  And it could be.  After all, the Twins started the season playing a lot better than any of us had a right to expect, and while we enjoyed it, we were always kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But as I thought about this current losing skid, it occurred to me that a lot of it has come at the hands of some pretty good teams.  They lost three to the Royals, who are in first place.  They lost two of three to the Rangers, who are in second and may very well be in first before too much longer.  And now they've lost two to the Cardinals, who are also in first place.  Now, obviously, if you want to be considered a good team, you have to be able to beat the good teams.  So, the Twins may not be a good team.  But that doesn't necessarily mean they're a terrible team.

For one thing, most teams are going to have a worse record when they play good teams--after all, that's how good teams get to be considered good teams, because the other teams have a hard time beating them.  And I think a team like the Twins is going to have an even harder time beating good teams.  After all, how did they beat teams when they were winning?  By taking advantage of the other teams' mistakes and capitalizing on the opportunities they were given.  A good team, again pretty much by definition, is going to make fewer mistakes and make it harder to capitalize on the mistakes they do make.  So, a team like the Twins is going to have a hard time beating them.

There's one other aspect to it, too, which came up in the game log.  The Twins haven't been hitting well, but when they have hit the ball well, it seems like they've been victimized by a lot of good plays.  Again, that comes from playing a good team.  Most of the time, a good team will have a good defense and will turn balls that might have been hits into outs.

I guess what I'm taking an inordinately long time to say is that it seems to me that the Twins are not playing that much worse now than they were when they were winning.  A little worse, probably, but not a lot worse.  One of the big things that has changed is the quality of the competition.

The good news is that, after this week, the schedule turns back in the Twins favor for a couple of weeks.  Yes, there are four games against the Royals in there, but there are also three with the White Sox, three with Milwaukee, three with Cincinnati, and three with Baltimore.  If the Twins just hang in there and don't panic, there's no reason they can't start winning some games again.

To sum up, things don't look good right now, but all is not lost.  We're not a good bet to make the playoffs, but we never were, not really.  But we do have a shot at hanging around .500, and that would be a significant improvement over last year.

Or, on the other hand, we might win our last ninety-eight games.  Come to think of it, that sounds like a much more likely scenario.  It starts tonight!  We'll just have to settle for 132-30!