MLB Panic Meter: Twins’ late-season hangover from last year carrying over; should Rays, Orioles be concerned?

Thursday marked four weeks since the official Opening Day in Major League Baseball’s 2025 season, meaning we’re nearly one month into the six-month marathon that is the regular season. 

Something we know about baseball is that teams absolutely cannot win the pennant or even a division here in the first four weeks of a season, but they definitely can bury themselves from playoff contention. Some teams dig too deep a hole to start and are unable to climb out. Others simply play like the bad team they are going to be all season, despite what preseason projections might’ve said.

We last did the panic meter two weeks ago, but some things have changed since then. Let’s revisit. We’ve got two holdovers and two newcomers this time around. Congrats to the Mariners and — though they aren’t fully out of the woods just yet — Braves for graduating from the list in the last two weeks. 

The panic meter is scaled 0-10, with 0 being not a care in the world and 10 being mass hysteria. The 0-4 side is building concern while the 6-10 side is building worry toward panic. A 5 would be the center point between “decent concern” and “slight worry.” 

Record: 11-14

After a 4-1 start, the Rays have been one of the worst teams in baseball aside from the Rockies and White Sox — and those two are in a category by themselves. The Rays have only won seven of their last 20 and three of their past nine. 

Zack Littell and Taj Bradley now sit with ERAs north of 5, while Ryan Pepiot isn’t much better. They’ve gone 3-6 in one-run games and while they aren’t overly bad in many aspects, the Rays don’t appear to be great at anything, either.

The Rays play in a tough AL East and are 2-5 against fellow AL East teams so far with a lot more of those games coming. Perhaps most troublesome, they’ve played 19 games at home compared to just six on the road and they’re still in bad shape. 

Panic Meter: 3

It’s too early to panic much with a record that isn’t all too far below .500, nor are the Rays really that far away from a playoff spot in the standings. Plus, the Rays have shown the ability to play above their perceived ceiling a lot of times in recent years. 

I do think they just aren’t very good and we’re seeing that play out. The home/road split in games played so far is pretty troubling and it’s also a reminder they are playing “home” games in a minor-league park that isn’t really their home. That surely has an impact. 

Record: 10-14

In that same tough AL East, we have the Orioles. Though the record doesn’t look as bad as this statement might suggest, the Orioles have only won one series all year, when they took two of three from the Guardians early last week. They followed that up by losing a home series to the Reds, which included a humiliating 24-2 loss on Sunday. Then they lost a series to the Nationals, who don’t even look like contenders this season. 

The offense hasn’t been great, but it hasn’t been the problem. The Orioles rank 29th in defensive efficiency and dead last in team ERA. Yes, somehow the Orioles have a worse ERA than the Rockies. Injuries have exposed the lack of rotation depth in the organization, leading the Orioles to have a 5.82 starting pitching ERA, 29th in the majors. 

That isn’t how a contender is supposed to look nearly a month in. 

Panic Meter: 4

Zach Eflin’s return to the rotation will help, but otherwise, I have very little hope for a rotation turnaround here. Grayson Rodríguez can’t be counted on to return this season. Charlie Morton is clearly done, given his age of 41 and the mileage on his right arm. Tomoyuki Sugano has a 3.54 ERA in five starts, but with 27 hits, six home runs and only nine strikeouts in 28 innings, that ERA should actually be worse. Dean Kremer has been awful. 

It’s just incredibly difficult to see a road to positivity with this rotation in a very tough division. As I said above, I don’t think the Rays are very good, but I’d say the Orioles are more likely to finish last than first. 

Record: 10-15

The Cardinals started the season by sweeping the Twins (we’ll get to them in a second) and have gone 7-15 since. They just finished a 1-6 road trip. It’s a tough trip to play seven games against the Mets and Braves on the road, but it also might have set them on a path to being sellers this coming trade season. 

Remember, this is a franchise in transition with club president John Mozeliak stepping down after the season to hand the baton to Chaim Bloom. Nolan Arenado is well known to be on the trade block and he might not be alone. 

Panic Meter: 2

The best bet is that they are headed for a losing season that includes selling off veterans before the deadline. There is a sliver of hope, however, which would be that the Cardinals are 8-4 at home and just took home series against the Phillies and Astros before the aforementioned catastrophic road trip. Nine of the Cardinals’ next 13 games are at home and if they keep playing well there, they can hang around. They’ll need to fix the wretched road record (2-11) if they have designs on contending, but for now, they can stay afloat with three good home series in the next two weeks. 

Panic can be avoided in the short term, even if there are legitimate concerns. 

Minnesota Twins

Record: 9-16

The good news: The Twinkies have some momentum after a series win!  

The bad news: It was against the White Sox again. And they lost the series finale. 

The Twins have only won three series this year, including two over the White Sox (and, somehow, the other came against the red-hot Mets). They are 5-14 when they don’t play the White Sox and the 4-2 record against the AL’s worst team isn’t overwhelming.

Injuries have been a concern, but this is an injury-prone group. That’s part of the deal here. 

I’ll again point out that the Twins last season finished 12-27 in their last 39 games. There are some differences, but it is largely the same roster and it’s now been 64 games of the Twins playing like a 109-loss team. 

Panic Meter: 7

They could get hot and turn things around, of course. There’s still plenty of season left for that. We’ve seen teams do things like rip off 23 wins in 30 games. 

For me, I’m well aware that it’s still really early, but if I were a Twins fan, I’d be in panic mode. I’m starting to believe they are just a bad baseball team.