RandBall: You can watch 10 local Twins games on over-the-air TV, but will you want to?

The extent of the long-term damage from the Twins’ dismal 0-4 start this season won’t be known immediately.

Perhaps it will be mitigated rather quickly with a very good stretch of play erasing a very bad one, two small sample sizes canceling each other out and leaving the Twins back to level and letting grumpy fans calm down.

Maybe it is a sign of things to come this season, just as the “Total System Failure” season of 2016 was presaged by their 0-9 start.

It could even have franchise-altering potential if a poor season leads to a change in leadership and/or influences in some way the sale of the team.

The extent of the short-term damage, though, is more clear. It showed up again Tuesday morning when the Twins made an announcement that should have been a slam-dunk piece of good news:

They are partnering with Fox9 to show 10 Tuesday night games on free over-the-air TV. It’s the first time a package of local Twins broadcasts will be on free TV since 2012; several affiliates in North Dakota, South Dakota and Iowa will also carry the games. And the total number of free games grows to 15 when factoring in the five Twins games being shown on a Fox national broadcast.

“We joined MLB Media and created Twins.TV in 2025 to increase access for all fans, with a big part being the opportunity to return to free, over-the-air television,” Twins Executive Chair Joe Pohlad said in a news release.

More access to Twins games for people who don’t pay for TV is a good step. If the Twins were 4-0 right now, or even 2-2, there would be rejoicing.

Instead, the reaction to the announcement is tinged with frustration and snark.

That is the mood of the fan base right now — a group that went into the offseason sour about the 12-27 finish to 2024 and viewed the past several months leading up to 2025 through a skeptical lens.

Rosy projections about the Twins having the best bullpen in baseball and having a better than 50-50 shot at reaching the postseason fueled some hope heading into the start of the season. Opening Day is a time for optimism or at least the benefit of the doubt.

But that has mostly evaporated over the course of four games, a string of defeats by a combined margin of 28-6 to what was projected to be a mediocre-to-bad Cardinals team and an awful White Sox squad.

Monday’s game was so bad that Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa were lifted for pinch hitters in the fourth inning, a white flag waved with 18 outs left. Willi Castro pitched the final inning of the 9-0 embarrassment.

Manager Rocco Baldelli is preaching patience, which he is right in doing but also needs to do because there isn’t really another choice.

The Twins aren’t this bad, but they might be closer to it than we thought. They have 158 games left to show everyone otherwise.

Ten of them have been added to the over-the-air TV lineup, if you want to watch.