In late April of 2006, the Twins visited Comerica Park in Detroit for a three-game series and were outscored 33-1.

They would go on to win the AL Central.

I’m gonna go out on a limb and say the same thing isn’t gonna happen in 2015. The Twins just opened the season with a three-game series in which they were outscored 22-1. Only an error by Tiger left fielder Yoenis Cespedes prevented the Twins from becoming the first team in major league history to get shut out in each of their first three games of the season (ironic, as Cespedes also robbed the Twins of their one would-be earned run when he stole a homer from Kurt Suzuki in the opener). Detroit’s team ERA after one series is 0.00. The Twins ERA is 7.88.

It was every bit as ugly as it could have been.

The Twins batted .151/.177/.172. The Tigers batted .343/.420/.559.

In other words, Tiger pitchers turned the Twins lineup, collectively, into an amateur. Twins pitchers, meanwhile, turned the entire Tiger lineup into Miguel Cabrera.

Everything was bad. The pitching. The hitting. The fielding. Both Ricky Nolasco and Kyle Gibson were hurt by the Twins putrid defense, but they also both hurt themselves with walks. It looked to me like it wasn’t so much control problems as neither Nolasco or Gibson trusted their own stuff enough to challenge hitters.

I hate to say it, but by the time the Twins were down 4-0 in Thursday’s series finale, I was kinda rooting for them to get shutout again. Because I’m frankly kind of offended that the team has been telling fans and media the roster they’ve assembled can contend. That’s idiotic, and for them to say it means they’re either disingenuous or truly idiotic. I hope the people in charge of this team are truly embarrassed and humbled by what their work produced in this series.

The Twins have been bad for four years now, but back in 2012 and 2013 fans assured themselves that by 2015 the worst would be over, and the rebuilding efforts would be paying off in wins. It hasn’t happened, largely because the team has been reluctant to fully embrace rebuilding. They’ve been trying to rebuild on the fly while kinda/sorta trying to contend at the same time. That’s stupid and everyone knows it. Except the Twins.

The Twins’ army of young prospects has been cooking for long enough that most of them are ready to be taken off the grill and set on the plate. But the Twins, for reasons I can’t understand, refuse to serve them up.

The longer they keep them in the minors, the longer fans have to wait for their team to contend. Because it’s not like if the Twins make Alex Meyer or Trevor May or Miguel Sano sit in the minors for another year they’re guaranteed that they’ll become All-Stars the minute they get called up. They’re still going to require an adjustment period. Continually pushing that timetable back by giving at-bats and innings to crappy veterans is incredibly frustrating.

So I’m kind of convinced that this opening series was the baseball gods punishing the Twins’ front office. As offended by the Twins’ stupifying roster as I, those forces surely are punishing Terry Ryan, Rob Antony, Paul Molitor, et al, by embarrassing the Twins in the very first series of the post-Gardy era.

This is what you get for opening a season with a dozen replacement-level players when you have a top-5 farm system and then telling your fans the playoffs are realistic.

I’m tempted to say I’ll continue to root for the Twins to get drilled in hopes of accelerating the youth movement, but I can’t really do that. I want to enjoy watching the games. I’d like to at least see Joe Mauer and Brian Dozier heat up. I’d like to see Nolasco figure it out, I’d like Tommy Milone to prove useful.

But I also hope most of the dead weight on the roster continues to play like dead weight.

Because the only way this team is going to become remotely interesting this season is if the front office swallows its pride and brings up the kids.

* On this week’s ‘100 Eyes on Sports’, Dave and I talked about the Twins’ dreadful start, as well as the Final Four, the Masters and Wrigley Field’s plumbing issues.