The "Fire Gardenhire" folks are out in full force today, and frankly it's hard not to take them a little more seriously at this point. The Twins are not competitive, and whatever malaise infected 2011 has already crept into 2012.

But if you are looking for the seeds of this destruction, consider they go deeper than the manager, the pitching coach, the hitting coach or any one player. They might have something to do with this: overconfidence in the team's direction based on feasting on the AL Central from 2008-2010.

As you'll recall, 2007 was a rough year for the Twins. They finished below .500 for the only time between 2001-2010 and then lost Torii Hunter to free agency and Johan Santana, Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett in a pair of what now appear to be lopsided trades as Bill Smith took over for Terry Ryan.

And yet 2008 rolled around and they were able to rebound with a younger and somewhat remade lineup and pitching staff, winning 88 games and taking the White Sox to a one-game playoff. They followed up with 87 wins, including another Game 163 in 2009, this time winning. And 2010 brought another division title, won handily with 94 wins. How did they do it? Well, part of the reason is that the AL Central was just that bad.

Consider these numbers:

From 2002-2007, when the Twins won four AL Central titles and were at least competitive for most of the other two seasons, the Twins were a combined 97 games over .500 -- about 16 games over per year. The breakdown: 46 games over against the Central, 24 games over in interleague play and 27 games over against the rest of the AL. So they certainly took advantage of some weak AL Central foes, but they were also pretty good against the rest of baseball. The 2005 White Sox won the World Series. The 2006 Tigers made it there as the wild card.

From 2008-2010, when the Twins won two AL Central titles and reached Game 163 in the other year, they were a combined 50 games over .500 -- also about 16 games over per year, just as they were from 2002-07. But the breakdown of how they got there is much different: 54 games over against the AL Central, 14 games over in interleague play and 18 games under .500 against the rest of the American League. They made it to Game 163 with 88 and then 86 victories through 162 games in 2008 and 2009.

This isn't exactly a new notion, but the numbers are pretty stark. We would venture to say the success while playing nearly half their games against the decidedly awful AL Central -- while struggling in fewer games against the improving rest of the American League, with teams like Tampa Bay and Texas rising to prominence -- masked the fact that they were no longer the consistently good team they were in earlier seasons. They believed they could keep winning with their core intact in 2011. But with some injuries and underachieving, they couldn't keep up. And once they fell below the threshold of other AL Central teams in -- Detroit, most notably, but now certainly everyone but Kansas City -- the result was the hard fall playing out in front of us.