Pohlad backs Ryan

A heavy defeat to the Texas Rangers only further deepened the sense of disappointment felt throughout the Minnesota Twins, after another tough American League season.

The loss took the Twins’ MLB scores to a 1-8 on their current road trip and a season-worst 24 games below .500, leaving no one in any doubt that this year has been another failure.

Despite such a disappointing year, the Twins will not be changing their head coach, with interim boss, Terry Ryan, receiving the backing of the team’s owner, Jim Pohlad.

The coach has been beset by bad luck this season – with a string of injuries robbing Ryan of his star players.

Pohlad has made it clear that Ryan is the man to lead the club back up the ladder next year, despite admitting that it had been a tough year to be a Twins fan.

"It's very frustrating. There's only one way to describe it, and that's losing sucks. When Terry wants to remove the interim (label) from his title, we'll welcome that," Pohlad said, after watching his team’s latest lopsided defeat.

"We don't keep revisiting that every week or every month. We don't keep saying to him, 'Terry, why are you still interim?' Whenever he wants to take that way, he can, as far as we're concerned. He has my full confidence.”

Players like Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, and Josh Willingham prove that there is enough quality in this Twins squad for the team to not be struggling at the bottom of the league.

If Ryan can keep the majority of his key players injury-free next season, then this Minnesota squad is more than capable of being a real force in 2013, a belief backed up by the early MLB picks on Bet365.