He means the misplays in the field, the mental mistakes that compound the physical ones, and a lack of resilience when things go bad. It's not an everyday occurrence, far from it. But that makes nights such as Tuesday even more irritating.

"To play as good as we played last night (in a 7-2 victory), then turn around and play as bad as we played tonight, that's not what we're looking for. We're looking for consistency," Gardenhire said. "We missed plays, too many. And that's just not acceptable. It's not us -- but it is us."

He's right, especially lately. The Twins have lost three of their past four games, and are back below .500 again at 13-14. And the manner in which the ceiling keeps falling on the Twins is what particularly bothers the manager -- and some of his veterans, he suggested.

"It's really frustrating for a lot of guys in the clubhouse who have been around," Gardenhire said. "That's not the way we like to play Baseball."

Errors by Delmon Young and Alexi Casilla helped turn a minor muddle in the second inning into a game-deciding mess. And it wasn't just the three earned runs that resulted in that inning, putting the Tigers ahead 6-0, that bothered the manager. It was the details that went unrespected.

Ramon Santiago's two-out double to right in the second inning, for instance, sent catcher Gerald Laird hustling around three bases and toward home. Michael Cuddyer retrieved the Baseball and relayed it to Casilla ... who held it while Laird slid home.

"We have a chance to throw a guy out at the plate. (Casilla) catches the ball, drops his hands, looks around and now we have no chance," Gardenhire said. "That's not knowing the base runner was a catcher. That's not knowing the game."

Events like that had the manager questioning a lot of things about his team.

"You prepare for a ballgame and then you come out and start like that, and you just wonder how we prepared," Gardenhire grumbled. "We go out and do all of our work -- we take (batting practice) we take our ground balls, we take our fly balls -- and then nothing really good happens."

Is that a broad hint that Gardenhire is considering a shakeup? If so, he's got a good model to follow.

The Tigers used a massively revamped lineup Tuesday, with Carlos Guillen shuttled to the disabled list, Magglio Ordonez demoted to sixth, former leadoff hitter Curtis Granderson placed in the fifth spot, and Clete Thomas, recalled from Class AAA earlier in the day, handed the responsibility of batting third. Thomas doubled, tripled and singled in his first three at-bats of the season, and Miguel Cabrera homered and collected four RBIs hitting between Thomas and Granderson, making the move appear genius on its first day.

That lineup battered Nick Blackburn, who allowed a run in the first, and five more in the second, all after two were out. He gave up three more in the fourth inning - home runs by Cabrera and Granderson that had Gardenhire wondering about Blackburn's ability to bounce back.

"We just played terrible behind him. But still, he's got to pitch," the manager said. "And to go out there and give up three more like he did, he just didn't make any pitches. Whether he was frustrated or not, you still have to get through it and try to get innings out there."

Blackburn said the problem was fastball control; "I couldn't find the difference between a belt-high fastball and the dirt, and couldn't get it somewhere in between," he said after falling to 2-2.

It's just one game, and Gardenhire said the Twins would use it as a learning experience. But he sounded like a man who is tired of managing a .500 team.

"I know guys are trying and they're busting their tails," he said. "But we're a better Baseball team than that."