18 Straight: Twins Season Ends with Yet Another Playoff Loss

What more is there to say, really

The initial plan was to write another 3 Up, 3 Down postgame analysis after Game 2.

It’d be hard to find three positives, frankly.

Everything we knew about the 2020 Minnesota Twins fell apart in the last 27 hours.

The vaunted 2019 offense was a flickering light bulb in 2020 — and it went all the way out in the Wild Card Series.

The team that caught the ball for much of the 2020 season inexplicably made errors when the team could least afford to.

The team that couldn’t lose at home lost to the team that couldn’t win on the road.

The team that couldn’t win against opponents over .500 lost to the one that handled them capably.

The team brimming with depth was put in a position to have a player make his big-league debut in the starting lineup in the playoffs — the first time it had ever happened in MLB history.

The team that had no bullpen depth to speak of held the Twins to three hits and zero runs in 9.2 innings of relief.

Anything can happen in a two-game series, but it’s hard for anyone who is a Twins fan to feel like they got anything but a raw deal — which is pretty consistent across the world in 2020 anyway.

There isn’t much more to say here. The only part of this team that held up its end of the bargain was the pitching staff — though it’s worth questioning if holding a 29-31 team to seven runs in two games is anything more than just doing business rather than a superlative.

We can retire the Bomba Squad nickname — which should have lapsed after 2019, anyway.

Fans can take solace in the fact that the Twins are still remarkably well-structured and positioned to succeed well into the future.

But man, Twins fans — this one smarts. As a former die-hard, I hear you.

Changes are coming.