ATLANTA (AP) — Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli closed the clubhouse Wednesday to keep out reporters after his team was swept in a three-game series by the Atlanta Braves.
Baldelli said the players were having a meeting to sort out what went wrong following a 3-0 loss, the team’s sixth shutout of the season.
“Well, what I took away was the truth of the matter is we were flat and we made no adjustments really in the game almost whatsoever, and if you’re going to call a spade a spade and say how it is, that’s not good baseball,” Baldelli said.
“We got wiped this series by the team on the other side of the field. There’s no way we can walk out of this with any positives, to be honest with you, and that’s the truth.”
The Twins began the day with a half-game lead over Cleveland in the AL Central, but they dropped to 40-42 and were 0 for 23 with runners in scoring position during the series with Atlanta.
Five Braves pitchers combined to hold Minnesota to four hits with 14 strikeouts.
“I mean if I’m rolling that up and trying to portray it any other way I’m lying, so we have to make some really, really legitimate adjustments to what we’re doing right now if we’re going to go out there and compete and win games against that team or really any other team,” Baldelli said. “I’m not really pleased right now with the effort this series. The second half is here but we have some work to do in this second half because we can’t play like this.”
Baldelli declined to single out any players for underperforming. He gave shortstop Carlos Correa the day off so the struggling two-time All-Star could rest. Correa, who is dealing with plantar fasciitis, is hitting .212 with 11 homers and 37 RBIs in 71 games.
Correa isn’t alone. Byron Buxton is hitting .203 and Joey Gallo is at .189, going 0 for 3 with three strikeouts Wednesday. As a team, Minnesota closed the first half of the season with a .232 batting average and a .710 OPS.
“We’ve attempted to make adjustments in some ways. It hasn’t worked, just it hasn’t worked,” Baldelli said. “This is a challenge. This is an ultimatum for our team. We’re here. These guys work their freakin’ (tails) off every day, but maybe we’ve got to work our (tails) off in a different way and have a different approach and a different mindset when we step out on the field ‘cause really what we’re doing right now is frustrating because that’s madness going out there and doing the same stuff over and over and over again when we have guys that have shown either for periods of time or for their whole careers to be productive players to be falling flat as a group right now. We demand more of ourselves than what we’re doing right now.
“That’s every single person in uniform out on the field right now and we owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the organization, we owe it to our fans, we owe it to everyone to give more than what we’re giving at the moment.”
The Twins have an off day Thursday and open a three-game series Friday at Baltimore.