West Coast Woes

I think the time zone change is a factor.

Do West Coast teams have an equivalent to the stinky Mississippi River?  I don't think so :-) 

I agree with hybridbear, a good part can be due to travel.  Another part is, those teams have a larger revenue market to draw from.  I also don't discount the notion that those teams [at least now] have more aggressive management and ownership.

The Twins just aren't as good as those teams on the west coast.  Not knowing the records, the same could be true with the Dodgers, though we might be better against the Padres. 

Well the Angels are a very good team playing great baseball.  The Twins are an OK team playing bad baseball the last week.  Put them together and it's a recipe for disaster.

If the 2 hour time zone difference was a factor, then couldn't we expect east coast teams to do 33% worse than the Twins while in California?

I do think there's something to the Twins clenching up when they see certain jerseys in the opposite dugout (see Yankees, New York). That factor is diluted over time with roster turnover on both sides, so going back decades for evidence isn't going to tell us much.

Did they get too much rest over the All-Star break? It certainly doesn't look like the Athletics or Angels did.

We're always looking for sneaky angles to explain losing (and winning) streaks. In this case, my opinion is that the Twins are playing woeful, smelly baseball right now and the big reason is that they're regressing towards the mean.

maybe there's a fork in the road.

I don't know why, but when I was at the game on Monday night, the Twins seemed to lack an attitude of confidence against the Angels. This might have to do with the lack of power hitters in the lineup. Power hitters are like having bullies on your side. The Twins are a bunch of nice guys, where the Angels have some bully in them - big, muscly guys like Pujols and Trout and Calhoun, guys that can knock the snot out of the ball.

The Twins had Dozier, and not much else. Singles hitters with low averages. Nobody that terrifies the opposing pitcher. Throw curves and low outside stuff to Dozier, and this team is toast. It was as bad as the last four years. They had no chance.

Bring up Arcia, Vargas and AB Walker. Even if these guys mostly ride the bench, even if Walker whiffs at a record pace, at least they have the advantage of an intimidating look and a really hard swing. Arcia can help protect Sano from righties, Walker can help protect Sano from lefties, and Vargas can do both. Each of them provides a legitimate home run threat as a late inning pinch hitter.

A baseball team needs two or three bully boys, or they get pushed around by the studs on the west coast.

Last night's game was the best they've played since game one of the road trip - yeah they lost and made several poor choices at the plate, but it wasn't an embarrassment.

Beyond just trying to find a silver lining, the detail that the Angels are a very good team and the Twins are a very imperfect team that has played well for long stretches in the first half.

I agree with (I can't remember who said it) that the Twins seem to have come out of the break playing very tight. Of the many many reasons to bring up Arcia, another one is that he brings a distinct kind of energy to the clubhouse that the team has been a bit short on lately. He's a passionate player, which has a little to do with how he found himself in AAA in the first place, but a little bit of fire could be nice.