Twins' slump has everything to do with too few reliable bats

The Twins inducted Ron Gardenhire into their Hall of Fame this weekend, then paid homage to him by swinging their bats like a utility infielder with a lifetime average of .232.

Sunday, the Twins lost again, 7-0, to the Texas Rangers, a team so woeful that it fired its manager and general manager midseason, at a Target Field so subdued you could hear a Twin drop in the standings.

The Twins have scored 41 runs in their last 12 games, an average, according to analysts, of not nearly enough.

After the game, the body language in the clubhouse suggested that retiring Lynx star Sylvia Fowles, an aspiring mortician, may want to send over some coupons.

The Twins have won just 10 of their last 23 games to fall 1.5 games behind Cleveland in their passive-aggressively competitive division.

Gardenhire went into the Twins' Hall on Saturday. Dan Gladden and Cesar Tovar went in on Sunday. Twins greats in powder-blue jackets attended both ceremonies, a reminder that the best teams under managers Tom Kelly and Gardenhire possessed the gift of comic relief.

Gladden dropped a few off-color jokes about his family members during his speech. In their prime, Kirby Puckett, Kent Hrbek, Torii Hunter, Eddie Guardado and Mike Redmond put the Comedy Central into the American League Central.

Redmond used to break clubhouse tension by slowly walking naked from one end of the room to the other. He also led sessions of naked pullups, just to distract from nagging realities like batting averages.

Baseball is, you may have heard, a strange game. Trying harder does not always produce the desired effect. In football, the cliche is that players should want to run through a wall for their coach. In baseball, everyone knows that running into a wall will land you on the injured list, and your manager will ask you not to do that anymore.

The Twins' true problem is not effort or intensity, or even mood. It's lineup depth.

Which is a reminder that while the Twins have overhauled their roster since March, they have been let down by injuries and failures of some of their young position players.

When Tyler Mahle is healthy, four-fifths of the Twins' starting rotation consists of pitchers acquired since December.

In late March, the Twins shocked baseball by signing star shortstop Carlos Correa for $35 million a year.

The Twins have called up top hitting prospects Jose Miranda and Royce Lewis, with Lewis suffering a season-ending knee injury.

At the trading deadline, the Twins dealt for an All-Star closer, Jorge Lopez, a quality reliever, Michael Fulmer, and Mahle, as well as backup catcher Sandy Leon.

Twins baseball boss Derek Falvey has aggressively overhauled the roster, using every method possible. Turns out he could have used two or three more professional hitters.

In their last 12 games, the Twins have scored more than five runs once and more than four runs twice, even though three of those games went to extra innings.

Somehow, the Twins have the presumptive batting champ (Luis Arraez), a slugging All-Star (Byron Buxton), a potential rookie of the year (Miranda) and Correa, yet can usually count their daily run total on one hand without using the thumb.

With Buxton resting, the top four hitters in the batting order were Arraez, Correa, Jorge Polanco and Miranda. That's a strong foursome.

The problem begins at No. 5. On Sunday, slumping Max Kepler batted fifth, followed by utility player Nick Gordon, Gio Urshela, Jake Cave and Leon.

Kepler's failures, along with injuries to fellow lefthanded hitters Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach, have left the bottom of the order unbalanced and weak. Gordon has overachieved while producing near the league average offensively.

Urshela is a capable hitter. Cave spent most of the season in Class AAA for a reason. Leon is a nearly-automatic out.

The Twins are getting little offense from catcher and right field, and left field is an ensemble production.

It's clear that what this team needs is either a big hit, or a well-timed sight gag.