The vigil was Friday night at Target Field, and you could practically hear “Danny Boy” verse by verse over those silent Minnesota hitters and squealing pitchers, writes Brian Murphy.

According to faceplants, this was 2:15 a.m. outside the Irish pub, after the beer and whiskey had run out and mourners were stumbling to an afterparty. Pour one out for the suffocating 2024 Twins, who meekly exited with a signature 7-2 loss to the playoff-bound Baltimore Orioles.

A meltdown for the ages that portends a winter of discontent and self-reflection, if they can stomach it.

“That was clearly more than a disappointing way to end what was and looked to be a promising season,” said somber manager Rocco Baldelli. “This will bother me forever.”

Yes, get in line.

It took the Twins just two hours to complete a historic collapse after the Detroit Tigers put them on the clock with their wild-card win at home over the hapless White Sox around 8 p.m. But never forget that their grave was dug last winter, when ownership destroyed a modest payroll and stripped the studs of all the goodwill they earned in October.

“I’m just trying to right size our company,” a deaf Joe Pohlad casually explained during spring training about cutting $30 million from a postseason roster and scouring the free agent bargain bin like an old girl. Deliberate disregard for your audience is no way to run a business, but I’m not the one with diversified assets and billions in the bank.

The Pohlads betrayed their fiduciary duties as franchisees by ossifying their product and assuming their customers wouldn’t notice. They conveniently scapegoated the bankrupt Bally’s Sports and its legal catfight this summer, cutting revenues and darkening broadcasts for a wide swath of loyal and perpetually harassed customers.

Worse, they failed to read the room and reward a desperate fan base that had fallen in love with the Twins again and restored the roar at Target Field last fall when the team won its first playoff game in two decades and ultimately advanced after nine straight losses. series. Cynical stewardship, visible to all. What a waste.

All that energy and momentum turned to ash as the Twins started the season 6-12. They awoke from their slumber and piled up enough wins through August 17 to peak at 70-53 and ultimately build a 10 ½ game lead over Detroit in the league. wildcard race. Not quite the 1951 Giants and Bobby Thompson falling behind by 13 ½ games to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers. Or the Red Sox blowing a fourteen-game lead over the Yankees in ’78. But the six-week collapse of the meek Twins was thorough enough to declare this season one of the most comprehensive and embarrassing in franchise history.

“There’s an expression that everything happens for a reason; I don’t like that,” said Pablo Lopez, who was tagged with his 10th and final loss in a disappointing and inconsistent season for the ace. “People use it as what happens is what you didn’t want to happen.”

Nothing can condone how the Twins simply bled to death, and the boos that poured from the seats on a balmy early fall evening may be the least of the club’s worries. It’s still $14 beer night at the ballpark every night, but fans are finally waking up from the sugar-coated spell they’ve been under since Target Field opened its gilded doors in 2010.

Attendance dropped during this week’s Miami Series to just 17,000 Thursday night, as the Twins choked in the 13th inning and ended up on life support. The autopsy should spare no one, from the ownership suite and front office to the manager’s office, the clubhouse and the perpetually crowded training room. Accountability is not just a cliché at a press conference. By padlocking the vault, the Pohlads executive vice president and chief baseball officer Derek Falvey and senior VP/general manager Thad Levine left no room for error as they attempted to expand the pitching staff and replenish this gassed lineup .

Still, they sniffed out every acquisition to replenish a staff decimated by the offseason departure of Sonny Gray and the loss of Joe Ryan in August, or to shore up a torn bullpen that has been hemorrhaging and bodies for weeks has.

Enigmatic reliever Trevor Richards was signed from Toronto at the trade deadline in late July, but proved so useless that he was released within a month. Falvey would have been better off stroking rather than overreaching for another failure. Lopez’s late-season resurgence was barely enough to build a viable starting rotation without battle-tested veterans.

Three rookies – Simeon Woods Richardson, David Festa and Zebby Matthews – were desperately thrust into pennant-racing roles, for which they were completely unprepared and wrongly supported by a transgression that erupted over the summer.

Minnesota’s inability to go deep or drive in runners in scoring position in September was an accelerant. Manager Rocco Baldelli’s stubborn refusal to check his gut before robbing the charts of proven starters like Bailey Ober, opportunities to continue shutting down opposing lineups due to the addictive appeal of data-driven late-inning matchups.

Superstars Royce Lewis, Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton were in the lineup together for about two weeks of games, as the Twins’ confusing injury woes only worsened. Bally celebrated this week as Buxton played his 100th game for the first time in seven years, as if he survived the Bataan Death March.

The autopsy reveals the hard truth that the Twins are a mediocre team always looking for top talent and breadcrumbs in the postseason, because the Pohlads prefer a clean result to playing hardball with competitors who are more driven by the pursuit of the championship. This is not correct measurement, it is a settlement. The status quo is unsustainable. Everyone knows it. Will anything change?

The Pohlads have revealed their motives. Time for fans to start voting with their wallets, drain the revenue streams at 1 Twins Way and stop carrying water for a team that treats them like sap.