Twins Record This Week: 2 - 3
Twins Record Overall: 9 - 15
This Week's Fan Confidence Rating: 64
Clearly only the optimists voted in the fan confidence poll last week...or else many of us were swayed by that three-game winning streak. You remember, right? The winning streak that got our hopes up before they were cruelly dashed on the rocks of Ben Zobrist's fists?
Cumulative Results
Having individual weeks where you finish with more wins than losses, that happens in baseball. Over the course of a regular season that lasts sixn months, it happens a lot. Yet, so far, the Twins haven't had one week where they've actually won more than they've lost, and those cumulative weeks of recording losing records are starting to take their toll.
After dropping three in a row to the Rays the Twins are now six games under .500. Sure, it's only April. And sure, it's not like true threats like Chicago or Detroit are threatening to run away with the division early, but right now I still think it will take 90 wins to take home the AL Central crown in 2011. The longer it takes the Twins to start tacking on the wins the more difficult the Twins will make it on themselves.
Effort?
With Michael Cuddyer calling out his teammates for a lack of effort, the only thing we can really ask is: is it true?
I'm not going to get on Cuddyer's case for being a leader. There's not really anything we can say about it, because he either is or he isn't and none of us can really stand up and say if he's a good one or a bad one. And I'm not going to get on his case for being a leader even though his production hasn't been ideal, because apart from Denard Span and Jason Kubel nobody's production has been ideal. And as the longest-tenured member of the Twins, he really should be a leader.
But the issue of effort is one I'm willing to entertain. You can chalk up pitching inconsistency, offensive impotence, and that win-loss record up to the sheer number of backups, reserves, and minor leaguers who are being forced to acrue a lot of Major League time. In spite of this, at some point, though, you have to wonder why a vast majority of players simply aren't producing. Is it just a really bad start? Or can any of these lackluster results be traced back to things like focus or, yes, effort?
Again, it's a question we really can't answer. But as a whole, this team's performance has definitely been suspect. And if that's not an issue for fan confidence, I don't know what is.
April's End
The first month of the season is almost behind us, and I think we can all be glad of that. It's a long season, and as far as I'm concerned the sooner we can turn the page on this start, the better.
Here's hoping May is a lot better.