Reusse: With this loss, Twins are on way to closing out their worst collapse in their 64 seasons in Minnesota

All collapses by the hometown baseball team come with their unique elements. My most memorable remains the 1977 Twins, with their fantastic collection of hitters.

Rod Carew was the leader, batting .388, being voted as MVP, and appearing on the covers of Time and Sports Illustrated in the same week.

Those Twins were leading the American League West by a half-game on Aug. 15 and wound up in fourth place, 17½ games out of first.

Not enough pitching.

The modern-day collapse takes a higher-degree of futility. That's because two teams per league qualified for the postseason back in the glory days of Sir Rodney and now six of 15 teams in each league get there.

So, let's hear it for the 2024 Twins and declare that, at least mathematically, they are closing out the greatest collapse in the 64 seasons of this team frequently annoying us here in the Upper Midwest.

These Twins reached a season peak at 70-53 on Aug. 17 and were given odds of over 90% to claim one of the three AL wild-card spots.

Even as they faltered, the odds remained very favorable of staying in the top six, but then came a putrid 2-5 road trip, followed by the arrival of the putrid Marlins on Tuesday night to continue the Twins' free fall with a 4-1 Miami win.

When you can send out your ace, Pablo López, and he can show the way to a crushing doubleheader sweep by the Boston Dead Sox when allowing seven runs in four innings, put a fork in 'em. And when Bailey Ober, your other outstanding starter, can give up a lightning-quick four-spot to the 99-loss Marlins in the second inning … I mean, what's the point?

The Tigers passed the Twins on Sunday and then sent out ace lefthander Tarik Skubal against the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday afternoon in Detroit. He allowed no runs and two hits in seven innings in a 2-1 Tigers win.

The Kansas City Royals also ended a seven-game losing streak. Both of these AL Central upstarts now are two games ahead of the Twins with five to play.

Much of the attention during what's now an 11-23 dive into the dumpster has been credited to a payroll reduction that cost the team Sonny Gray as a stout starter — and with no reasonable attempt at replacing him.

Also, there has been considerable public unhappiness with bringing in only reliever Trevor Richards as an alleged reinforcement from Toronto at the trading deadline. He lasted 27 days and featured the wild pitch.

Yet, for all the complaints about the bullpen and a starting staff even more exposed after the injury to Joe Ryan, this observation was made to manager Rocco Baldelli in a pregame meeting with the media:

"You didn't hit the first month and stunk. You hit for three-and-a-half months and played very well. You now haven't hit for five weeks and can't win. The conclusion is that hitting is very important."

Baldelli offered a short preamble and then said:

"It's crunch time. When you're up against the wall, sometimes you don't want to feel like you're up against the wall and talk about being up against the wall. You want to react. … You're reacting to what is in front of you and there is no clutter in your mind.

"We just have to play the game and not worry about the rest. You do that by controlling the strike zone, actually having a plan and taking it into the game. The more you can take that into the batter's box, the better you are going to be. That's something we have to do right now.

"Your statements — no one in their right mind can argue with those. That's true. You win as a team, you lose as a team. You win with great performances, great team performances, sometimes it's great individual performances.

"Eventually, you have to go out there, do your job and do it well, myself included. You have to go out there, drive in the runs when they are standing out there."

The Twins went 1-for-10 with runs standing out there. And there were a couple of brief spells when a handful of fans 15 rows up to the left of home plate chanted "Fire Rocco" (loud enough to be heard on the telecast, I'm told).

Makes sense. Clearly the manager isn't insisting strongly enough that his ball-beaters get a clutch hit.