These were the Minnesota Twins’ magic numbers this season: 66, 68, 69, 82, 97, 99. They were so magic they made the Twins disappear.

Those numbers represent the number of games played by two-thirds of the team’s position regulars. They help explain why the Twins are buried deep in the American League Central and will lose the most games they have lost in 30 years.

This is not what I expected of the Twins – nor did they – when I wrote about 10 days after the All-Star game that the Twins were back and ready to win their third straight division title. They did not even have a .500 record at the time – it was 47-53 – but I liked the way they were playing.

I was wary of the Detroit Tigers, who were in first place with a 53-47 record and starting to play better than they had been, but I wasn’t going to miss out on the Twins for the second time in three seasons. In 2009, when they trailed the Tigers two-thirds of the way through the season, I thought they were going to win but didn’t write it. The Twins tied the Tigers on the last day of the season, then beat them in a one-game playoff.

Figuring I would get it right this time, I didn’t think of the possibility of the Twins continuing to incur disabling injuries. They had already suffered more than their share. But to show that this was a wall-to-wall, season-long attack on the Twins, their catcher and leader Joe Mauer was diagnosed with pneumonia and won’t play the rest of the season, and two other players were involved in what was described as a minor traffic accident between their cars on their way to the airport last Thursday for the last road trip of the season.

Third baseman Danny Valencia, one of only two regulars who have avoided the disabled list this year (right fielder Michael Cuddyer is the other), and center fielder Denard Span, who recently came off the disabled list after nearly three months, did not play in Friday night’s game.

Their brief absence, however, was minor in the Twins’ 2011 scheme of horrible happenings. Through Friday night, Span had played 66 games, second baseman Tsuyoshi Nishioka 68, first baseman Justin Morneau 69, Mauer 82, Casilla 96, left fielder/designated hitter Jason Kubel 99.

With his season-ending pneumonia, Mauer serves as bookends for Minnesota’s medical madness. In the first year of an 8-year, $184 million contract, Mauer went on the disabled list two weeks into the season with bilateral leg weakness and stayed there for two months.

It was appropriate, if agonizing, for Mauer’s wrecked season to end at the Mayo Clinic, where his pneumonia was diagnosed. Mauer and Mayo are two of the best known sites in Minnesota.

Mauer was the Twins’ starting catcher in only 47 games, and he wound up with career lows in batting average (.287), on-base percentage (.369), slugging percentage (.368) and home runs (three). Mauer’s experience epitomized the Twins’ season.

“The other night all eight starters in the lineup were players who started the season in the minors” Bill Smith, the Twins’ general manager, said, discussing the team’s unusual rash of injuries. But he also acknowledged that the Twins contributed to their downfall.

‘We haven’t played as well as we expected,” Smith said in a telephone interview Friday. “We lost some of the attention to detail, some of the fundamental things. It’s been a very frustrating season for Ron Gardenhire and his staff. They have already made plans for how they’re going to correct that next spring.”

On the other hand, the number and frequency of the injuries that struck the Twins could easily have distracted the players and undermined the Twins’ usual style of play.

“There was a time in mid-July when we were down to two guys,” Smith said, meaning two players on the disabled list, Morneau and Casilla. “We thought we would get them Friday of that week and have our full squad on the field, but Casilla aggravated his hamstring and we have three more guys on the disabled list.”

In all, the Twins have had 17 different players on the disabled list a total of 27 times, meaning 10 players have been on it twice each. According to Twins’ records, they have missed a total of 731 games. That is the equivalent of 4 ½ seasons.

In contrast, the division-champion Tigers have had 10 players on the disabled list a total of 12 times. They have missed a total of 591 days, but more than half of that time, 313 days, is attributed to two pitchers, Joel Zumaya and Brad Thomas.

Only one position player, Carlos Guillen, has missed substantial time, a total of 126 days in two visits to the disabled list.

The difference in the disabled lists is reflected in the won-lost records of the teams. Since that day in July when the Tigers led the Twins by six games, the Tigers have a 38-20 record (through Saturday) and the Twins 13-45. That’s a difference of 25 games in the standings.

The Tigers have two outstanding players in Justin Verlander the pitcher and Miguel Cabrera the hitter, but it took a mid-season addition to solidify their post-season credentials. They acquired Doug Fister, a 27-year-old right-handed pitcher, from Seattle July 31, and he has produced a 7-1 record and a 2.02 earned run average in 9 starts and 1 relief appearance.

“We clearly needed another starting pitcher, and Fister has stabilized the rotation,” geneal manager Dave Dombrowski said.

The Twins, meanwhile, looked ahead to next season.

“We’re concentrating on getting everybody healthy for the start of 2012,” Smitg said.

NO SURPRISE: SCORING DOWN

A few games remain in the regular season, but not enough runs will be scored in them to alter the substance of the STATS report about baseball’s offense. According to the statistical service, the “recent downward trend in scoring has continued in 2011.”

This season, STATS reported last week, teams were averaging 4.28 runs a game, which is the lowest average since clubs averaged 4.12 a game in 1992.

Scoring rose after expansion in1993 and 1998 but in recent years has slipped slightly but steadily. Pitching seems to have improved, but the decline in scoring is also attributed to the decline (or elimination) of use of steroids and amphetamines.

MANNY ON DECK FOR NEXT ACT

If, when Manny Ramirez announced his retirement early this year, your reaction was “Manny, we hardly knew ye,” despair no longer. Manny wants to give us a second chance.

Ramirez was quoted last week as saying he wanted to resume his career and was prepared to serve the 100-game suspension that prompted him to retire in the first place.

Ramirez apparently wanted to play in the Dominican Republic but was told he would first have to serve the suspension. As long as he had to sit out 100 games somewhere if he wanted to play again, he figured he might as well do it for major league money.

He’s available for delivery next August.

Just because negotiators for the players and the owners seem to be getting along famously these days – better yet, these years—it doesn’t mean they agree on everything. If they did – and wouldn’t that be boring – the Logan Morrison grievance would already have been settled instead of awaiting the step two meeting (settlement talks) that precedes a hearing before the impartial arbitrator.

The reason I say the case would have been settled and the grievance withdrawn is in a truly peaceful environment the clubs’ labor lawyers would have agreed with the union’s argument that the Florida Marlins acted improperly and punitively in optioning Morrison to the minor leagues last month.

The union has charged that the option was punitive, and I think it would be difficult to see it otherwise. Link Morrison’s demotion to the release of Wes Helms the same day, Aug. 13, and the union’s case becomes even stronger.

The union nevertheless has no guarantee that the arbitrator, Shyam Das, will find in its favor, but it is the Marlins we’re talking about here, and they have demonstrated under Jeffrey Loria’s ownership that they are capable of acting as badly as anyone and worse than most.

Early last year the union and the commissioner’s office joined in taking the Marlins to the woodshed and whacking their bare bottom for making improper use of money they received under the industry revenue-sharing program.

Rather than face the arbitrator with two members (union and clubs’ representatives) of the three-man panel poised to find them guilty, the Marlins conceded their wrong-doing and agreed to spend the funds appropriately.

As both sides intended, the Marlins’ message was heard by some other clubs whose use of revenue-sharing funds was questionable. No further meetings were necessary.

Loria, an international art dealer, who has owned the Marlins for nearly 10 years after previously owning the Montreal Expos, is among the least liked owners in the game, but despite my suspicion that it was he who ordered Morrison’s demotion, a baseball official said it was more likely the decision was made by David Samson, the club president, or Larry Beinfest, the president of baseball operations.

Indeed, it was Beinfest who was quoted as saying Morrison had to learn more about “being a major leaguer.”

What crime did Morrison commit to provoke such comments and action? He didn’t appear for a meet-and-greet event with Marlins’ season-ticket holders. That occurred before that day’s game in which the left fielder played and after an autograph session with fans in which he had participated.

He was told after the game he was being sent to the Marlins’ AAA minor league team in New Orleans. The Marlins released third baseman Helms at the same time. How did Helms get in the middle of this mess?

He was the Marlins’ union player representative, and when Morrison asked him, Helms told him he didn’t have to attend the meet-and-greet.

Player representative is a perilous job, though not as much so as it used to be. In years past, teams often released player reps for the most innocuous of reasons. But the advent of guaranteed contracts changed that unconscionable practice.

I asked a union lawyer if the union had thought about filing a grievance for Helms, but I realized that step would not be practical. The 35-year-old Helms was hitting .191 with no home runs, six runs batted in and 35 strikeouts in 69 games and 110 at-bats. It would have been easy for the Marlins to argue that they released him because he couldn’t hit any more.

Morrison, on the other hand, was not demoted for lack of hitting. He was second on the team in home runs and third in r.b.i.

The grievance is not based on material matters. Morrison was in the minors for fewer than 20 days so he won’t lose major league service time, and the amount he lost from his $414,000 major league salary was slightly less than $23,000.

Teams have done well with arbitrators over the years in defending their release of players and related issues. As far as anyone could remember, though, this is the first grievance alleging improper option.

The Marlins clearly did not want to talk about the case. No one I called took the call or returned it after I explained why I was calling: Loria, Samson, Beinfest, even P.J. Loyello, the head of communications. I simply wanted to ask why Morrison was optioned.

I also wanted to ask why they brought him back so quickly; he returned to the Marlins after a 10-day visit to New Orleans and was actually back with the Marlins a couple of days before the grievance was filed.

Given the loose-cannon-type of comments Morrison has made in his brief career, maybe the Marlin wanted to teach him a lesson.

A management lawyer said he found a legal precedent to support the Marlins’ demotion of Morrison, but he declined to cite it.

Meanwhile, the conflict sparked speculation in Chicago that the Marlins might want to trade the 24-year-old Morrison to the White Sox, whose manager Ozzie Guillen has supposedly been coveted by the Marlins.

The Marlins, though, should be careful about what they wish for. If they think Morrison is a loose cannon, they haven’t been paying attention to Guillen’s comments in recent years.

Major league baseball players are the best at what they do, but does that status excuse them from using their brains for something other than trying to outguess the opposing hitter or pitcher?

I present Prince Fielder and Francisco Rodriguez, teammates with Milwaukee’s National League Central-leading Brewers as Exhibits A and B to explain what I am talking about.

Fielder and Rodriguez last week felt it was more important to comment on their personal selfish matters than to keep the team’s post-season effort as the primary perspective. The comments of both players were avoidable, but both opted not to avoid them.

With the Brewers scrapping to hold onto their division lead, Fielder, who can be a free agent after the season, said in a television interview that this would be his last year with the Brewers. Rodriguez, whom the Brewers acquired from the New York Mets July 13, complained that he was not getting chances to save games.

In my view, Fielder’s comments were dumber than Rodriguez’s complaint, though both could have benefited from keeping their mouths shut.

In an interview that was scheduled to be shown Sunday as part of TBS’ Major League Baseball package, Fielder, talking about his status with the Brewers, said, “I’m signed for this year, but being real about it, it is probably the last year.”

Fielder’s position comes as no surprise. Although he had avoided making that declaration, no one, including the Brewers, expected that he would sign a new contract with Milwaukee, certainly not with Scott Boras as his agent. Boras generally goes for every last dollar, and he isn’t going to get it from the Brewers.

But having made it through most of the season without talking about his plans, why would Fielder end that silence with two weeks left in the season and his team struggling to hold onto its lead?

I am not suggesting that Fielder should have lied about his plans; the last thing reporters want to hear is a bunch of lies that insult their intelligence. There would have been nothing wrong, however, with Fielder saying, “This is not the time to be talking about my plans after this year. There’s plenty of time to deal with that. At the moment we’re fighting to reach the playoffs, and that’s where my entire focus is.”

No one could complain about that type of response, but Fielder wasn’t quick enough or smart enough to come up with it. Instead he made a comment that invited further exploration.

First reporters went to Fielder to hear for themselves his intentions. Then they went to other players for their reaction to Fielder’s intentions, although they played down the impact of Fielder’s comments, his teammates were nevertheless drawn into his story at an inappropriate time. It was a distraction they didn’t need.

Rodriguez made his distracting comments at practically the same time as Fielder was declaring his free-agency intentions.

The relief pitcher told CBSSports.com that he was not happy with his role with the Brewers, who acquired him July 13 from the Mets, for whom he was the closer. The Brewers told him he would, if not share the closer’s role with John Axford, get a chance to save some games. But that’s not the way it has worked out.

Axford didn’t cooperate, running off 38 successive saves and prompting the rookie manager, Ron Roenicke, to adapt the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“I’m not happy,” Rodriguez told reporters the day after the initial interview. “That’s the bottom line for me. They told me one thing; they haven’t done it, and I stand by what I said.”

The Brewers were unrealistic when they told Rodriguez he would get save opportunities. Adding an acquired closer to an existing closer doesn’t work.

“Don’t tell me something you’re not going to do,” Rodriguez said. “That’s what irritates me most. They told me they were going to do something, and they didn’t. Simple as that. I’m pretty much trying to come in every day, ready to pitch, and get my job done when they needed me.

“But at the same time, I had an expectation like every other player. They told me they were going to do something, and they didn’t. That’s why I’m a little disappointed with the situation.”

The comments were not unreasonable, but they were misdirected. Why didn’t Rodriguez go to the manager and air his gripes with him? Despite his public comments, though, Rodriguez showed that he knew right from wrong.

“The season’s about to end in two weeks, and we need to win eight more games,” Rodriguez said. “So I’ll go as hard as I can the next two series coming up and try to wrap them up now. That’s it. That’s the bottom line now. That’s the most important thing.”

His understanding of the Brewers’ circumstances is why I said Rodriguez’s comments were not as bad as Fielder’s. But Doug Melvin, the Milwaukee general manager, said he didn’t have a problem with either player’s comments.

“I don’t view it as a big deal.” Melvin said in a telephone interview. “I don’t have any reaction except with the players and their focus is on winning.

“It hasn’t affected the rest of our guys. It’s just two guys who felt like making comments. I’d give it a day or so and see how the team reacts. I talked to Ron and have no reason to think anything will come of it.”

First baseman Fielder, who with Ryan Braun powers the team’s offense, “has seemed focused all year and never said anything about it. I don’t worry much about these things unless I think it affects the team.”

Melvin said he understood the position Fielder was in because “everywhere I go, every step I take I’m asked the question: will he be back next year?”

Melvin has been unable to answer that question because he has not entered into negotiations with Boras. “We’ll wait until the season is over,” he said.

But Melvin knows the size of the task of resigning Fielder. He was the Texas general manager in 2000 when the Rangers signed Alex Rodriguez for $250 million.

FROM NO. 1 TO NO. 23

If and when Ian Kennedy gains his 20th win for Arizona – he has won 19 games – he will join a surprisingly long list of pitchers who played for the New York Yankees and later became 20-game winners elsewhere.

That list numbers 22, according to Elias Sports Bureau. Doug Drabek became No. 22 by winning 22 games for Pittsburgh in 1990. Kennedy, a 26-year-old right-hander, doesn’t have enough starts left to win 23, but he can become No. 23.

Kennedy was the Yankees’ No. 1 pick in the 2006 draft and went to Arizona in the 2009 three-team trade that put Curtis Granderson in center field at Yankee Stadium.

As much as teams always need pitching, with the exception of Philadelphia, Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager, said the other day he did not regret trading Kennedy.

“I feel very fine with the trade,” said Cashman, who has enjoyed Granderson’s terrific season with the Yankees. But Cashman also said he didn’t regret trading Kennedy instead of the other young pitcher the Yankees had at the time, Phil Hughes.

“The view of Hughes in the industry at the time was exponentially higher than it was of Kennedy,” Cashman said. ”If I had been willing to include Hughes instead of Kennedy I would have gotten much more in the trade.

Nevertheless, Cashman added, he didn’t want to give up Kennedy either and feels the pitcher’s performance this season validates the Yankees’ scouts’ assessment of Kennedy.

Josh Byrnes, who was the Arizona general manager at the time, said he didn’t try to get Hughes “because we thought he’d be harder to get and have a higher price.”

The Diamondbacks, said Byrnes, now an executive with San Diego, thought Kennedy would be “a good solid starter but not a Cy Young candidate,” adding, “We probably didn’t evaluate him as a No. 1,” which he has been this season with a 19-4 record and 2.99 earned run average.

Cashman said he thought Kennedy benefited from the trade, explaining, “He’s a fly ball pitcher and the A.L. East is not as easy for a fly ball pitcher as the N.L. West.”

S.O.S FOR PIRATES (SAME OLD STORY)

At about the time baseball fans of college age were beginning their freshman and sophomore years in Pittsburgh last week, the Pirates were insuring that those poor, deprived students would extend their streak of never having seen a winning Pirates team in their lifetime.

That’s right. In case you missed it, the Pirates suffered their 82nd loss, racking up their major league-record 19th consecutive losing season. And to think they were in first place for a couple of days in July.

The Pirates have had two principal owners, one president, three general managers and five managers who never oversaw a winning season.

WHEN HISTORY ISN’T HISTORIC

Probably because it has had the most opportunities with Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera, the Yankees’ YES network is the biggest offender of baseball historical proportions.

As far as YES announcers are concerned, Jeter and Rivera have spent the season making history when that is not at all what they have done.

When Jeter got his 3,000th hit, YES announcers said he made history. When Rivera gained his 601st save, they said he made history. Neither, however, made history.

The first hitter to get 3,000 hits might have made history, though if he did he had already made history when he reached 2,999 because he was the first to get there.

Trevor Hoffman retired with 601 saves, and Rivera has tied him and maybe surpassed him by the time you read this. Being the first to 602 saves may be historic, but Rivera’s attaining 601 was not. Someone had already done it.

On the Yankees telecast from Toronto Saturday, Michael Kay declared, “Rivera will try to make history” by getting his 601st save. And when he recorded it: “Mariano with 601 saves, history here in Toronto.”

If there was anything historic about Jeter’s 3,000th hit, it was that he was the first player to get all 3,000 hits with the Yankees. But I never heard the YES announcers refer to their brand of “history” in that context.