Twins Fan: Middle Distance Is 'Gettin' Stared At Pretty Good Right Now'

After getting swept badly in their season opening series at Detroit, the Twins are searching for answers.  Twins fans, meanwhile, are dealing with the setback in their own way.

"Right now, I'm just not thinking about it too much," said Bob Groehler, 43, of Richmond.  "I'll watch the games, watch the post-game, turn off the teevee, then just...I just don't do much of anything.

"I look at the wall, but I ain't focused on the wall. Just kinda starin' into the middle distance.  It's gettin' stared at pretty good right now."

Groehler, a lifelong Twins fan who still plays town ball in the area, says he wasn't expecting his middle-distance-staring to set in this fast.

"It's been a bumpy few years, for sure.  I know the last couple years, I'd just watch (Ricky) Nolasco or (Mike) Pelfrey get the shit kicked outta them, and everything would just get kinda hazy.  I'd lose focus, for lack of a better word.  Just kinda lookin' without lookin', y'know?"

Groehler's wife, Renee, confirms this.

"I'd come in, and he'd just be, I don't know, what do they call it?  In a fugue state?  Like he was damn near hypnotized.  Somebody would be kickin' the ball around in the outfield and he wouldn't even react.  He'd just be gone johnson.

"But it usually didn't happen 'til at least graduation, or 4th of July.  This, I've never seen this."

For his part, Groehler says he hopes this is not a sign of things to come.

"It was so easy to slip right back into the starin' and the not thinkin' about much at all, like a warm bath.  I know we got the young guys and they're so close you can just about taste it.  And I so wanna give (Twins manager Paul) Molitor the benefit of the doubt.  I wanna care again and get nervous in the 8th and 9th inning.   But damn, this is just so familiar now.  I can space out before the Twins have turned the lineup over.  It's like I'm not even there.

"This is what drugs are like, I think."