(Note: I’ll be on MPR — 91.1 FM and www.mpr.org — from noon until 1 Monday to talk sports with Gary Eichten on Midday from the State Fair. If you’re out there, ask a question and take home a fabulous prize. Otherwise, feel free to call in and vent.)

The Tigers travel to Tampa Bay, which is desperately trying to stay in the Wild Card race, and sweep three from the Rays.

The White Sox play host to Boston, which is nervously clinging to a three-game lead in the Wild Card race, and win two of three from the Red Sox.

The Twins, who were thought to have the easiest late-season path to the postseason, go to Cleveland to play the Indians, who’d just been swept by the Tigers, and lose two of three in a weekend of half-baked beseball that should be dispiriting to even the most optimistic of loyalists.

It’s over, folks. I’d pretty much told you that it was over before, but this is over-and-out over.

The good thing is that nobody from the Pohalds to the end of the bench can look at the Twins and see a team that doesn’t need changes and upgrades going into the 2010 season. And if anybody says that getting Slowey, Bonser, Neshek, Liriano and Perkins back is the answer, ask them whom they’re kidding. This is an organization right now that needs to look at itself from head to toe and recognize that the Twins no longer do the little things right and that the big things that are happening — Joe Mauer’s MVP season, Jason Kubel’s breakout year, Michael Cuddyer’s march toward 30 home runs and Denard Span’s establishment as a first-rate leadoff hitter — aren’t enough to sustain a competitive team.

The biggest shame of this season is that the AL Central, the weakest division of the three, was so incredibly winnable. As mediocre as their .500 record is, the Twins are lucky for the unbalanced schedule because they are 13 games under .500 against team outside their division — with a fine chance to be 17 under after theirnext four games in Toronto.

The Twins are also cursed by that schedule because it means that, for much of the season, they provided the illusion of playing for October baseball despite all the things they did poorly. Sunday,  in addition to getting just three hits and losing to David (6.23 ERA) Huff, the Twins managed to botch a rundown that, if you saw it, can be marked as the signature play of their season.

I’m not going deep on Justin Morneau here. He’s 0-for-September, 4-for48 in his last 14 games and has somehow been immune from any kind of demotion in the batting order. To get started on that right now would be an invitation to write more than anyone wants to read about the Twins right now, I think.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 6th, 2009 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.