The Minnesota Twins are a hot, first-place mess

The Minnesota Twins have come back down to earth with a thud, losing seven of their past 10 games.

What's happening: After a month of playing great baseball, the team has suffered through injuries, COVID and poor peformance.

• Injuries to Sonny Gray, Jorge Alcala and Royce Lewis, coupled with COVID absences by Carlos Correa and Joe Ryan, have not helped.
• Byron Buxton, dealing with a nagging knee injury, has just six hits in his last 50 at bats.
• They went 22 innings without scoring a run until Gio Urshela drove in Nick Gordon in the third inning of yesterday's 3-2 loss to Detroit.

It might get even worse: The Twins head to Toronto tonight to take on a hot Blue Jays team. Due to Canada's vaccine requirement, a handful of Twins players — and we don't know which, yet — will not make the trip.

• Then the Twins host the first-place New York Yankees followed by another contender, the Tampa Bay Rays.

Yes, but: With a 30-23 record, the Twins remain in first place in the AL Central, up four-and-a-half games on the Cleveland Guardians and five games on the Chicago White Sox.

• Plus, some of the injured or sickened players should return soon.

The bottom line: The Twins got off to a surprising start and given the sad state of their division, they still have a great chance of making the playoffs.