Rocco Baldelli lays into Twins, says it's time to 'answer pretty hard questions'
The slumping Minnesota Twins were blanked 3-0 by the Braves on Wednesday, getting swept out of Atlanta and heading to Baltimore two games under .500 (40-42) with pressure building on a team that can't figure out how to score runs.
The shutout loss was the 39th time this season the Twins have been held to three or fewer runs. After the game, players held a closed-door meeting while manager Rocco Baldelli blasted their approach and inability to meet expectations.
The truth of the matter is we were flat and we made no adjustments really in the game almost whatsoever. If you're going to call a spade a spade and say how it is, that's not good baseball. We got wiped this series," said Baldelli. "There's no way we can walk out of this with any positives. That's the truth. If I'm rolling that up and trying to portray it any other way, I'm lying."
Baldelli didn't name players, but he suggested that "good players" need to live up to their reputation.
"We're going to sit down and I think answer some pretty hard questions. What we're doing, just the reliance on good players just will eventually be good if they stick to their plan, it hasn't come to fruition to this point. This is a legitimate challenge right now for us as a staff, for our players, because each and every one of them can do better than what they're doing right now. It's our responsibility as a staff to get them there, but they can play better than what they're playing like," Baldelli said.
Who might Baldelli be talking about? He said it's about every player and coach on the team, but the player who sticks out like a sore thumb is Byron Buxton, who struck out swinging on head-high pitch and finished the day 1-for-4. It was Buxton's 21st hit since May 1, a stretch of awful performances that has led to a .161 batting average over his last 37 games.
Buxton isn't alone. Carlos Correa shouldered the blame after failing with runners in scoring position on Tuesday night. Max Kepler has been mostly incompetent at the plate and the likes of Joey Gallo, Christian Vazquez and Michael A. Taylor have been strikeout machines all season.
"This is a challenge. This is an ultimatum for our team. These guys work their freaking asses off every day, but maybe we gotta work our asses off in a different way and have a different approach and a different mindset when we step out on the field," Baldelli said.
"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 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. 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."
