Twins General Manager Terry Ryan couldn't have expected his team to start so poorly with high expectations coming off last season and the team's solid play in spring training. But they now have the worst opening record in club history at 0-8 after Wednesday night's 3-0 loss to the White Sox.

Asked for his assessment, Ryan said: "We have not played well, I think that's very evident. We had a couple chances to win games in Baltimore and we didn't get it done, so it's been a bad start for us, exactly what we weren't anticipating. It has been a disappointing start and we talked about wanting to get off to a good start and it hasn't happened and obviously that's not the way you want to get going."

While the team has struggled in nearly every area, Ryan steered blame away from the defense and pitching and looked more at the offense where only Joe Mauer (.393) and Eduardo Escobar (.367) are the only players hitting above .200.

"The first four games we played pretty good defense," Ryan said. "That hasn't been our problem for the most part. Some of the offensive side of the game, we're striking out way too much, I think that's one of the big concerns that I have right now, we're just swinging through too many hittable pitches and we're not putting together quality at-bats. We have to get going. Starting pitching for the most part has given us a chance. Mainly it has been the lack of offense."

Another disappointing part of the season has been the bullpen. The relief staff is 0-3 with a 4.21 ERA while starters are 0-5 with a 3.38 ERA. And things are only going to get tougher with closer Glen Perkins heading to the disabled list.

"I think you're right about [the relievers], we had a couple of games we could have put away in the eighth, and it has mostly been because of location," Ryan said. "The pitches were up in the zone. The other day against the Orioles we had a chance and Trevor May had a tough outing and [Kevin] Jepsen had a tough one, as well. We have to get those guys going because they certainly have the ability of helping us."

Strikeouts galore

Twins hitters have 66 hits and 65 strikeouts after getting four hits while striking out nine times Wednesday. How does Ryan see that getting fixed?

"I'm thinking you can get aggressive yet still stay in that strike zone and it will take care of a lot of the problems we have," Ryan said. "It's not so much the strikeouts, it's where the pitches are. We could certainly take some walks in that area instead of going after pitches and we're going to have to get more disciplined as far as staying in the zone and swinging at strikes. If we swing at strikes, we'll be all right."

Still it hasn't all been terrible in Ryan's eyes, and he sees bright spots in the hitting of Mauer, which was a big question mark coming into the season, and the defensive play of his catchers.

"Yeah [Mauer] is getting off to a nice start, a couple guys have gotten off to a nice start," Ryan said. "Escobar … he has been playing well, Mauer is taking good at-bats, it looks like [Brian] Dozier is starting to get going, finally. [Kurt] Suzuki and [John Ryan] Murphy have both done a decent job behind the plate. It's not all dismal.

"We've had some things take place here, some of the starters like [Phil] Hughes and [Ervin] Santana have pitched pretty well. But I would say Joe looks like he's off to one of those starts that gives you hope that he's going to put together a good year."

The Twins started 1-6 last season before starting to really win in April and May, but they are going to need to turn it around fast or this season could be lost before it even really begins.

Wolves stay healthy

One of the underrated moves former Timberwolves coach Flip Saunders made was hiring renowned physical therapist Arnie Kander to come to the Wolves as the vice president of sports performance. Between Kander and the new Mayo Clinic Square space next to Target Center, the Wolves have one of the best medical staffs in the country, and it showed this season.

Karl-Anthony Towns, Gorgui Dieng, Zach LaVine and Shabazz Muhammad all played 82 games. The Wolves are the only NBA team to have four players reach that mark. And on top of that, Ricky Rubio looked healthy all season and played tremendously over 76 games, the second highest total of his career.

Speaking of LaVine, he has shown as much improvement as any Wolves player this season. He finished the season shooting 48.7 percent from the floor and 43.4 percent from three-point range while averaging 16.5 points over his final 36 games.

What could help make the Wolves a contender next season is the fact that forward Nemanja Bjelica is living up to his European MVP status after early season injuries set him back. He ended the season averaging 10.5 points on a sensational 65.9 shooting percentage, including 65.0 percent from three-point range, over his final eight games.

Jottings

• Lori Sturdevant, one of the real stars on the editorial staff of this paper, told it like it is when writing Sunday about the possibility that the geniuses in the Legislature could kill the state's chances to get Major League Soccer in St. Paul. You watch and see, some other city will get the franchise scheduled for here if the Legislature doesn't act in a hurry.

• The capacity for the 2018 NCAA Final Four at the Vikings' new U.S. Bank Stadium will be 72,349.

• One encouraging aspect from Saturday's Gophers spring football game was the blocking of Jonah Pirsig, who was hurt a lot last year, and junior college transfer Vincent Calhoun, who were responsible for Rodney Smith running for almost 100 yards. The biggest surprise to me in the spring game was the running of redshirt freshman James Johannesson, who ran 22 times for 130 yards. North Dakota tried hard to recruit Johannesson, but he wanted to play in the Big Ten.

• Monday's Twins home opener saw drew an announced 40,638, which was the 159th sellout at Target Field and their largest crowd since last July 25 against the Yankees.

• The University of North Dakota announced Tuesday it will drop baseball and men's golf at the end of the school year. The baseball team has 12 Minnesotans on the roster, including lefthander Zach Muckenhirn, a junior from Delano. He is 2-4 with a 3.14 ERA and has 54 strikeouts in 48⅔ innings. He opened the season with a three-hit shutout at Southern California and eight shutout innings at Alabama.

Sid Hartman can be heard weekdays on 830-AM at 6:40, 7:40 and 8:40 a.m. and on Sundays at 9:30 a.m. shartman@startribune.com