Continued: Twins’ best-laid plans have gone quite awry

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The Twins are playing their 47th game today against Texas. They have been hanging around .500, even though two areas where Smith was optimistic — the infield and the bullpen — are in considerable flux.

Injuries have figured into the infield chaos. Everett served a 15-day term on the disabled list because of a sore arm in late April. Punto is on that list because of a pulled hamstring. Tolbert tore a ligament in his left thumb diving into first base last week and will be gone for two months, minimum.

Alexi Casilla is an erratic young infielder. He was batting .219 at Class AAA Rochester when called up to replace Punto as the utility infielder.

It appeared that he was summoned as insurance, nothing more. He mostly sat around for 10 days, starting one game at shortstop.

Harris had started 37 of the first 43 games at second base. There were some double plays that weren’t turned.

Harris also made a number of outstanding plays that indicated he might be getting better at the position. Obviously, Gardenhire did not see it that way.

The Twins lost three in a row last week to Toronto, then two of three in Colorado. Harris had an error in Sunday’s game in Denver, although it was a dropped throw when covering a base.

Harris’ shortcomings did not stand out during a 1-5 stretch in which the Twins’ play in the field was often shoddy. Michael Cuddyer had more misplays in right field than Harris at second base.

No matter.

Gardenhire fumed after Sunday’s loss and vowed that the Twins were going to tighten the defense. And his move was to insert Casilla at second base in place of Harris.