Confidence, it appears, does matter for local teams

Of all the tests of confidence that life brings, being a professional athlete is surely one of the toughest. To be a pro in the first place requires an absurd baseline level of confidence.

Yes, I am better than 99.99 percent of the general public at my craft. Yes, within that subset I will rise to the top. And yes, once I have made it, I will steadfastly believe that I can compete and defeat others who are similarly skilled and confident.

When confidence leaves a professional athlete — or even more interestingly an entire team — it makes one realize the full power of psychology at work even at the highest level of sports.

I could find countless examples of this — thousands, for sure — but let's zero in on two local teams that appear to have been particularly impacted by confidence in recent weeks: the Twins and the Wild.

The Twins came out of spring training with a collective confidence gained not only from a strong showing in Florida but also from last year's better-than-expected 83-win season.

They ran into a weird, wet series in Baltimore. One close loss led to another for numerous practical reasons (bullpen failures, clutch hitting woes) until suddenly the narrative wasn't focused on an individual player or individual game but greater notions: The Twins can't hit. The Twins are bad. Everyone vastly overrated this season's potential, including the players themselves.

Athletes at the very top of the food chain relative to the general public when it comes to confidence suddenly lacked it. And even the slightest diminishing of that belief has an impact on the precious chain of muscle memory that leads to performance.

The Twins had lost nine consecutive games before Friday; the Wild has lost seven in a row (five in the regular season and now two in the playoffs). Game 1 in Dallas was a noncompetitive affair that felt more like a preseason game. Game 2 was different, but with the same outcome.

The Wild is currently where the Twins were after scoring two runs in the bottom of the sixth Friday night, only to watch the Angels get three right back: feeling slightly better after finally breaking through with a goal in the third period against Dallas on Saturday but still waiting to see if that's a sign of things to come.

The Wild, of course, has far less margin for error: If the Wild doesn't win four of its next five games, the season will be over. The Twins, on the other hand, get to do this 150 more times and will be permitted to lose many dozens more before all hope is lost.

But in both cases, the collective and sustained rediscovery of an absurd level of confidence is a big part of the puzzle.