The Minnesota Twins have, mercifully, been mathematically eliminated from the 2011 Major League Baseball playoff chase. Realistically, they've been out of it for a very, very long time, but now the numbers say that there is officially no miracle that can take place in order to get the Twins into the playoffs this year.
The standings as of Friday morning look like this.
The Twins are 22 games out of the American League Central lead with just 19 games remaining, meaning that even if they won out and the division-leading Tigers lost all of their games, they would still finish three games behind Detroit in the division race.
Now, the Twins are just playing for pride. It appears almost certain that the Twins will lose more than 90 games, a feat that they have only accomplished nine times since moving to the Twin Cities from Washington, D.C. in 1961. Here are the worst Twins teams since the move to Minnesota.
1982 Twins - 60 wins, 102 losses
1999 Twins - 63 wins, 97 losses (two canceled games never made up)
1997 Twins - 68 wins, 94 losses
2000 Twins - 69 wins, 93 losses
1998 Twins - 70 wins, 92 losses
1983 Twins - 70 wins, 92 losses
1993 Twins - 71 wins, 91 losses
1986 Twins - 71 wins, 91 losses
1961 Twins - 70 wins, 90 losses (two canceled games never made up)
The 2011 Twins are on track to be one of the worst teams in the team's history. Now, it's just a matter of how far down the list they're going to find themselves.