Sometimes it's not what you wear, it's when you wear out

Every year, Twins veterans force the rookies to dress in outrageous costumes on the outgoing leg of the team's last road trip. Thursday afternoon, the rookies returned to the clubhouse to find "Daisy Duke" outfits -- sleeveless flannel shirts tied at the midriff and cutoff jean shorts -- waiting in their lockers.

Another day, Matt Tolbert imitating Jessica Simpson might have amused. Thursday, the outfits mirrored the Twins' predicament -- way too tight, awfully uncomfortable and more embarrassing than they'd like to admit.

When you play 162, there are games -- and ways -- you can lose without feeling much stress. The Twins' 3-2, 10-inning loss to Kansas City, the second-worst team in the league, was not one of those games.

And this was not one of those ways: wasting eight strong innings from Francisco Liriano, failing to beat up Royals journeyman Brandon Duckworth, watching Carlos Gomez inexplicably get picked off to short-circuit a rally, and cringing as reliever Dennys Reyes threw the worst pitch of the day.

Let's be blunt: The Royals stink. If zombies are the undead, the Royals are the ungood. They're 62-83 on merit. They have only one winning record for a full season since 1993. They don't play particularly hard or well, and their only strength is handing the rare lead to dominant closer Joakim Soria, aka "The Mexicutioner."

The Twins bullpen lost this game in the 10th. With one out, Matt Guerrier -- can his full name, "The Beleaguered Guerrier," fit on the back of his jersey? -- gave up two soft hits to center.

Twins manager Ron Gardenhire called in Reyes, a lefty, to face lefty David DeJesus, one of the few competent K.C. batters.

Before Gardenhire's butt had hit the bench, Reyes had thrown the worst pitch imaginable -- a high slider DeJesus lined to right for what proved to be the winning run.

Whose fault was this? Oh, there's plenty of blame for everyone.

Guerrier has the most appearances of any American League righthanded reliever (69). Reyes has the most appearances by a lefty (68). While diligently protecting his young starters, Gardenhire used Guerrier and Reyes until their gears were grinding. Guerrier hitting the wall in August, as much as anything, precipitated the Twins' recent slump.

Of course, Gardenhire called on Guerrier and Reyes so often because Pat Neshek hurt his arm and Jesse Crain has struggled to regain his command while recovering from surgery, so it's now obvious the Twins' front office needed to add one more power -- or at least battery-operated -- right arm to this bullpen.

Eddie Guardado is nice to have around, but he's a lefty who throws 85 miles per hour these days. The Twins need someone who can miss bats in the eighth inning.

The Twins should regret two failed rallies. In the second, Carlos Gomez hit a one-out RBI single. With Brian Buscher on third, Gomez took a lead ... and got picked off, with Denard Span at the plate. Sometimes Gomez' mistakes are comical. This was not.

"I don't know where you're going there," Gardenhire said.

Gomez explained that he was faking a steal. "You don't fake a steal in that situation," Gardenhire said. "You just can't get picked off there."

In the sixth, Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau hit singles, and the Royals brought in lefthander Ron Mahay to face Jason Kubel. He struck out and Mike Redmond hit into a double play. The Twins went 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position, and went hitless in their last 11 at-bats.

So seven days after returning from their four-city, two-country, 14-game, nine-loss road trip, the Twins hiked up their Daisy Dukes and headed on a three-city, 10-game road trip that could determine whether they will make the playoffs.