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(AP Photo/Steve Nesius)

Season Record: 24-26

Up Next: Rays (3:05 CT, 5/30)

1. Five Strong Innings

Scott Baker has been one of the team's worst pitchers this season, but most times his problems have stemmed from one big inning. Last Sunday Baker was finally able to work past that big inning, and worked into the ninth inning against the Brewers for one of his best starts of the season. As the Twins hit the road for a weekend trip to Florida, Baker was looking again to avoid a big inning against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Through five innings, the former ace allowed only one run on three hits. Joe Crede made an error that was later taken away to lead off the sixth inning however, and everything unraveled. Baker allowed a single after the Crede error, and an Evan Longoria three-run homerun put the Rays on top 4-1 with only three innings left to play.

Baker had another solid outing with the exception of the three-run blast, a hit that might have been avoided without Crede's mistake. Instead Baker took another loss to fall to 2-6 on the season.

2. Road Woes

The Minnesota Twins dropped another road game and fell to 5-15 on the road in 2009. The record is the worst road record in all of baseball; worse than teams like Washington. The Twins will not be contenders much past June if the trend continues, and one reason for the consistency in the loss column away from the Metrodome is the team's hitting with runners in scoring position.

At home, the Twins have no problems collecting big two out hits or a big late inning walk. On the road however the Twins can hardly get on base to begin a rally let along drive in a runner on second base with just one out. The Twins went 4-38 with runners in scoring position in the New York road trip just over a week ago, and they began their series with the Rays by going a horrendous 1-11 with RISP.

Down by a score of 4-3 in the eighth inning, Michael Cuddyer stood at second base with only one out. Joe Crede had the opportunity to make up for his mistake earlier in the game, but he instead took two called strikes before swinging and missing at strike three. The next batter, Brendan Harris, also watched a pitch go by before ending the inning with a strikeout.

The scenario was played over and over again for the Twins, a total of ten times to be exact.

Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer collected five of the team's eight hits on the night while the rest of the lineup, with the exception of Cuddyer's solo homerun, did basically nothing. Mauer had the opportunity to complete the cycle with a homerun in the final at-bat of the game, but struck out.

3. Crain in the Eighth?

Jesse Crain by far has the worst ERA in the team's bullpen. For some reason though, Twins' manager Ron Gardenhire thought it was a good idea to hand the righty the ball in a one-run ball game in the eighth inning. The result was an expected one; Crain allowed a few base runners, and Mijares allowed one hit to allow the run and allow the Rays to extend their lead  to 5-3. 

The outing raised Crain's ERA to 7.36 on the season, far worse than the one reliever Craig Breslow sported when he was ousted a few weeks ago. Yet Crain will almost certainly be back on the bench for tomorrow afternoon's matchup. There must be a point when Gardenhire realizes that Crain just won't cut it; hopefully that time comes when the team can still contend.