Twins go up, Twins go down…

The Twins were swept for the first time this season after Toronto pulled out a 3-2 win in 11 innings on Thursday afternoon. It is the Twins third three-game losing streak of the season and they find themselves, again, at .500, 20-20.

The Cleveland Indians just completed a three-game sweep of the Oakland Athletics. In that series they pitched like it was 1964 and they are now 1.5 games in front of the Twins at 22-19.

It is not a good sign for the Twins that the Indians are getting extremely hot and their pitching is starting to look completely dominant. At the same time, I don’t think much of the Oakland A’s as a baseball team, regardless of record or statistical evidence.

What the Twins will soon find out is that .500 baseball will do nothing in this division or this league. They have to start rallying off consecutive wins of four, five and six. They have to start rallying off consecutive series wins; taking three out of four against Boston was great, losing three in a row to Toronto negates all of those positive feelings.

Also, the fact that the Twins were done in by boneheaded mistakes on the base-paths and on the field: including over-running stop signs at third base, errantly throwing pick-off attempts at first and third base, and being thrown out at home on three occasions and picked off at first, after a single, by the CATCHER, do not bode well for a team that has to do “the small things.”

What it reeks of right now, is last year.

Wind out of the sails, for now - let us see what Monday brings.