And yes, the offense needs to score runs early to help out the pitchers. What seems to be happening is a complete inability to adapt to what the pitchers are trying to do.

Namely, on Saturday the offense looked really good because they were taking more pitches and making the pitchers work — effectively forcing deeper counts and waiting for strikes when they’re ahead in the count. That’s a good idea. The way to counteract that is by simply throwing it over the plate.

And that’s what the Rangers did on Sunday. They threw strikes, and the Twins watched them go by, and then found themselves behind in the count and couldn’t do anything. After the patience was invalidated, the Twins fell out of their groove and couldn’t do anything, and couldn’t adapt to what the pitcher was doing to them. Of course, the way to counteract what Padilla was doing is to expect a first pitch fastball and smash it (a la “What everyone does to the Twins”). And the Twins just couldn’t seem to figure this out.

I think this is a failing in general hitting instruction as well as a failure in in-game managing (and incompetence by the players themselves, of course). You have to tell the players what they’re doing. Not just sit there and think of quotes about how utterly fantastic every single pitcher in the world is. They’re not ALL hall of famers.

I see Korecky as an effective 7th inning guy, but that is about it.

what concerns me most is how bad our offense is and how we seem to be willing to do nothing to fix that. I know it doesn’t help when the pitching staff gives up runs like they are going out of style. But scoring some runs early will take some pressure off of the pitchers to try and throw shutouts

Gardy’s decision to keep Nathan out of the game Friday looks even worse (amazingly, that’s possible) after he put Nathan into a blowout just to get him work. (And Nathan even helped out my fantasy teams by giving up a Josh Hamilton bomb … continuing to look considerably worse in situations where it doesn’t really matter.)

While the Rangers aren’t the worst team in the majors (um, Giants?), and they do have a more-than-viable offense … it’s definitely true that we should have been able to beat their pants off. We’ve now let them start a rebound after a 7 game losing streak. Just like we did for Detroit. Pathetic.

That lineup sure was effective in managing 0 runs and being blown out of the water by the worst team in baseball!

Watching and listening to the Twins this year has been nothing short of terribly frustrating! Poor decision after poor decision on Gardenhire’s part has been a major part of the frustration. However it’s Gardenhire’s non-calls that are the cause for most concern. Most notably in the bullpen as well as his desire to just let our guys swing or bunt away, regardless of count or situation.

These are all ongoing problems, but have really to started to become obvious this year. While I don’t think this team can compete for a playoff spot this year. There is no way that with the talent we have and the way the starting rotation has performed should we win less than 82-83 games.

Being outscored 22-17 and losing 2 of 3 to a Ron Washington led squad is unacceptable by any standards.