This end-of-August weekend marks the end of baseball's brief stay in the summer spotlight. In the week ahead, the Gophers open, the Vikings set their roster, the preps start up, and football's kingship is back in full force.
Before the spotlight dimmed, the Twins returned to Target Field, appearing to be running on empty, while the Ada A's gassed up and headed 300 miles southeast to resume a long-shot bid for glory in the state Class C amateur tournament. Patrick Reusse has the report from both stops.
The Twins put on a fantastic display of inept hitting during a six-game losing streak that occurred against both Texas teams. This started with the lowly Rangers at Target Field, then concluded with the three-game mismatch against the AL-best Astros in Houston.
The media gathered in Rocco Baldelli's office three hours before Friday's home game and some expressed concern that the manager, his players and other members of the travel party would be entering the fray vs. San Francisco in a sleep-deprived condition after the late return from Houston.
The Twins' charter plane had not landed until 3 a.m., and then those rides home … lucky to be tucked in much more before the birds started greeting the dawn.
This was the traditional schmooze before getting around to veiled varieties of the true topic: Rocco, what has caused your team to go from mediocrity to utter futility in hitting as it sinks in the AL Central standings?
Baldelli went with the belief that he had good players, and that those players would again start to perform.
The manager also stated the one-fourth of the schedule that remained could result in the Twins' best baseball of a season. Baldelli wasn't making a prediction, just raising the possibility — as a modern manager must.
