Even Rocco Baldelli is Losing Patience with Twins

“We have to play better, we simply have to play better. Unfortunately, it’s not just one thing that we have to do. It’d be easy to sit up here and tell you what we have to do to win, and get it in one sentence and just… you know put it out there.

We have to pitch better, we have to play better defensively and play crisper, sharper baseball, and we have to have better at-bats. The early part of the game today, we didn’t make adjustments fast enough.

We need to grab some leads. We need to go out there, prepared on the first pitch of the game, to go out there and grab a lead. That changes the game. It feels like we’re behind a lot, we’re behind fairly early and it’s hard to play baseball like that. We have to really play with pride, umm… come out here and do our jobs better. It’s just not good enough right now.”

Rocco Baldelli

Before you even think it, know that Rocco Baldelli’s job is not in danger, according to Dan Hayes (The Athletic). That’s not what you just saw. He does, however, know that his team sucks right now.

And he should. The Twins have been struggling to find their groove since the moment they lost Royce Lewis on Opening Day. But guess what, he won’t be back until mid-summer.

To make matters worse, one of the only players excelling in Lewis’ absence, Carlos Correa, is out for a couple of weeks with his own injury. But none of that matters, because these losses still count and nobody cares about excuses.

Twins have time to figure things out

The upside, though, lies in the schedule. The Minnesota Twins still have a whole bunch of games left in their season to sort things out and hit their stride. With only 16 out of 162 games completed, there’s still an opportunity for them to find their rhythm. at 6-10, the season is far from over.

But, as Rocco points out, they need to start winning more games, no matter who is in the lineup. Otherwise, by the time Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis return, the season will be too far gone to get back. On a positive note, the Twins will head back to Minneapolis for seven games vs the division rival Tigers and White Sox.

Detroit is coming back down to reality, after an unbelievably hot start, and the White Sox might be the worst team in baseball (2-14). In fact, 7 of the Twins’ next 14 games are vs the struggling south side Sox.

Right now, the Twins are currently 4th place in the AL Central. They’re trailing the leading Cleveland Guardians by 5.5 games. With 146 games left in the season, they’ve got plenty of opportunities to make up ground and challenge for another division title.