There was no mystery as to what produced the Twins' sudden show of competence with a five-game winning streak over the past week. There also was no puzzle as to what caused that minor uptick to come to an end Tuesday afternoon at Target Field.
Pitching. It's always pitching.
The Twins took a 10-0 loss against the Mariners last Tuesday that dropped them to a season-low 15 games under .500 at 26-41.
The Seattle slaughter also raised the team earned run average to 5.05, which stood 28th among 30 MLB teams. That was quite the fall off a cliff for a team that was comfortably fourth in the 2020 mini-season with a 3.58 ERA.