No option: Change has to be in offing for Twins

There was more traffic than anticipated near Target Field an hour before Tuesday night's game. A young lady who we old-timers would suggest was "dolled up'' was heading away from the ramp elevator that leads to the ballpark and toward one that leads to the nearby arena.

"Is there a concert next door tonight?'' someone asked.

She responded that Eric Church and Dwight Yoakam were at Target Center, then crinkled her nose as if detecting a foul odor and said: "And I think there might be a Twins game.''

The reaction was similar to what took place decades ago, when my friend Mark Whicker was in town on some newspaper business and we were having dinner on the deck of a Lake Minnetonka restaurant.

The Twins of '82 or '83 were playing a game somewhere on the East Coast, and Whicker found it amusing that none of the several TVs in the bar area was featuring the local team on an August night.

So, Whicker kept asking members of the wait staff as they passed by, "Could you check and find out the Twins' score?'' The young ladies found this request so annoying that I feared we were going to be asked to leave the establishment.

The Twins of 2014 find themselves in similar condition with the public. The mere mention of the Twins makes faces crinkle into a frown. People become annoyed at the mere mention of them.

We often use the word apathy to describe the team's current standing in the Twin Cities, but it's worse than that. I think the public's attitude is closer to disdain.

The Twins are winding down another season where they maneuvered into also-ran status before the All-Star Game, and then fell into a state of collapse afterwards.

These Twins were 44-50 at the All-Star break. The mid-summer baseball celebration was held in the Twin Cities, yet this did nothing to enliven the home team.

The Twins went are 20-37 since the break after Tuesday night's 4-3 comeback victory over Detroit. That's a winning percentage of .351. That compares with these post-All-Star numbers of the prior three seasons: 2013, 27-43 (.389); 2012, 30-47 (.390); 2011, 22-51 (.301).

Teams that are rebuilding are supposed to show improvement in the last couple months of a season. No rebuilding took place in the previous three seasons, and the won-loss columns indicate that's the case again in 2014.

You give me Phil Hughes and a 15-10 record with a 3.56 ERA, I'll give you 11 other starting pitchers with a 30-55 record and a 5.40 ERA.

This season ends a week from Sunday. The Twins have to give the public something. With no concrete indication of rebuilding, with only another sad, post-All-Star march to the finish, the something has to be change.