While many in the baseball world focus on what could end up being a historic collapse on behalf of the New York Yankees, the Minnesota Twins are enduring a collapse of their own.
After leading the American League Central division for much of the season, the sky appears to be falling for the Twins.
Their three-game series against the Cleveland Guardians over the weekend was a pivotal one, and for all the wrong reasons.
Minnesota entered the series just a game-and-a-half back of the Guardians, who ultimately swept them.
Now, the Twins are 4.5 games back and for the first time since April 23, they find themselves below the .500 mark at 69-70.
Guardians 4, #MNTwins 1.
The record: 69-70 (3rd, -4.5)
In the Twins' most important series of the season to this point, they got swept at home by the Guardians.
They're below .500 for the first time since they were 7-8 on April 23.
— Do-Hyoung Park (@dohyoungpark) September 11, 2022
Twins Collapsing At The Wrong Time
This is the last thing that you want to happen if you’re a Twins fan.
The team was still right in the thick of the division race, even after the Chicago White Sox recent surge knocked them down into third place.
While 4.5 games isn’t usually too big of a deficit to overcome, it might be for the Twins at this point in the season.
They’ve lost eight of their last 10 games and are trending in the wrong direction, while the Guardians and White Sox are in a dead heat and playing solid baseball.
The Twins have been the best team in the AL Central for most of the season, but they’re now losing games at the worst possible time.
The current trajectory of the team certainly isn’t good, and they’ll need to turn it around quick if they want to win their third AL Central title in the last four years.
They’ve got a break in the schedule with the Kansas City Royals being their next opponent, but the Guardians and White Sox each have easy opponents as well.
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