AL Central<\/a> to 3 1\/2 games behind the first-place Guardians, while they have a three-game lead over the Red Sox for the final AL Wild Card berth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\u201cWe’ve had some periods of time where we have not played our best and then we’ve come right back from it and played some pretty damn good baseball,\u201d manager Rocco Baldelli said. \u201cIt’s about time we figure that out and get it done. I really don’t want to watch these kinds of games anymore. No one does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if those margins are to go in the directions they want, they can\u2019t afford miscues like the ones that cost them on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Twins got better and better looks against Braves starter Chris Sale as the evening wore on, and even after not taking advantage of a bases-loaded opportunity in the fourth inning, they put themselves back in a good spot in the sixth, when they had four hits in the first five batters off the veteran left-hander.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They only got one run to show for it, though. After Margot\u2019s leadoff double, he was thrown out at home by a huge margin on Ryan Jeffers\u2019 hard-hit single to right field, on which Margot was waved home by third-base coach Tommy Watkins even after having to initially hold up at second to make sure the liner dropped in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYeah, to be honest, it was kind of a surprise to me that they gave me the go sign, the green light,\u201d Margot said through interpreter and coordinator of communications Mauricio Ortiz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Twins did eventually erase their 1-0 deficit thanks to a subsequent single by Jose Miranda and a two-out, game-tying knock by Willi Castro, but the early out at home looked to have done a fatiguing Sale a favor in helping to limit the damage by turning a potential first-and-third, none-out situation into a runner on first with one out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGenerally speaking, you\u2019re going to be conservative there, but if you can score a run, you\u2019ve got to score a run right there,\u201d Baldelli said. \u201cEven though it\u2019s a situation where you don\u2019t want to make the first out at the plate, I thought it was a challenging decision, ultimately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTommy makes good decisions. I trust him. It\u2019s the hardest job in the game, and I\u2019m going to back him because he does good work for us. He\u2019s won a lot of games for us over there at third.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Margot was also involved in the other key play, a half-inning later, when the Braves answered with a four-run rally. The Twins\u2019 depleted bullpen gave way again when Caleb Thielbar allowed a go-ahead double to Matt Olson as part of a concerning trend in which the Twins had allowed an MLB-worst 44% of inherited runners to score entering the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The issues compounded when Luke Williams lined a ball to the warning track in left that hit off Margot\u2019s glove as he contorted his body for a two-run double that put the game out of reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI know that was a play I should have made,\u201d Margot said. \u201cI’m not going to make any excuse. I didn’t field it right. It was longer than what I expected.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not the first time the Twins have seen this kind of stretch in which they haven\u2019t done themselves any favors, given their memorably streaky first half, which has also shown them that they can snap out of these funks rather quickly — but they\u2019re not making it any easier on themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSometimes, you\u2019re going to make mistakes [and] you\u2019ve got to win anyway,\u201d Baldelli said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They just haven\u2019t been in this recent stretch — and it\u2019s cost them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Minneapolis – If the Twins are to snap out of this spiral and show that they have enough left in the tank to at least hold steady in the absence of two of their biggest stars in the lineup, they have talked about the need to execute and get back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":286272,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286271"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286271\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286273,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286271\/revisions\/286273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/286272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}