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Tim McCarver Style Column: Twins Fold Early Again—And This Time, It Feels Different

MINNEAPOLIS — You can talk about the long grind of the regular season all you want, but let me tell you something, folks—October baseball exposes everything. And this year, what it exposed in Minnesota was a former champion with a cracked foundation and no October magic left in the well.

The Baltimore Orioles walked into Target Field and left with a two-game Wild Card sweep, clinching it with a 7-4 win that wasn’t as close as the score suggests. The Twins? They’re going home early for the second straight year. And when that happens to a team that’s won back-to-back World Series, it tells you something: they’ve lost their edge.

Let me be clear: you don’t win two championships by accident. You’ve got to have horses in your rotation, you've got to get the big hits, and you’ve got to play clean, focused baseball. But right now, the Twins look more like a team living off yesterday’s headlines than one fighting for tomorrow’s trophy.

You want to know what kind of postseason it was for Minnesota? Look no further than the first inning today: Five runs from the Orioles before most of the crowd had finished their hot dogs. Starter Jordan Andrade couldn’t get out of the first inning. Just like that, the hill became a mountain—and this time, there was no climb back.

And look—credit to Kevin Johnson, the Orioles’ starter. He kept the Twins off-balance all day. Seven innings, no walks, seven strikeouts. A pitcher like that, when he gets ahead in the count and controls the tempo? You’re not going to do much damage, especially when you're chasing five before your first at-bat.

But here's what really stands out to me: four errors from the Twins. Four. You can't win postseason games with that kind of sloppiness. You just can't. In fact, you don’t even deserve to win when you play like that. Championship teams take care of the baseball. This team didn’t.

And let’s talk about Baltimore for a second, because they deserve it. Catcher Omar Herrera—three hits, two RBIs. That’s the kind of clutch performance that wins short series. And Sal Cantu? The MVP of the series after seven shutout innings in Game 1. He didn’t pitch today, but his presence loomed large.

You could feel it—the Orioles had the energy, the intent, the focus. They played like a team trying to make a statement. The Twins? They played like they expected to wake up in the Division Series just because their rings said they should.

Folks, when a team wins two World Series in a row, you expect them to at least get past the first round the next year. But now Minnesota’s gotten swept in back-to-back Octobers, and the whispers are going to get louder.

Has the window closed? Have they gotten too comfortable? You’ve got to ask the hard questions.

Because one thing I know after all these years around the game: you don’t stay on top just by being good—you stay there by staying hungry.

And right now, the Twins look full. Maybe too full.

— Tim McCarver (in spirit)