Shelton was straightforward with his comments.
The Minnesota Twins dropped two of three to the Tampa Bay Rays this weekend at Target Field, and the bats were the biggest reason why.
After a 4-1 loss in 10 innings on Sunday, manager Derek Shelton did not sugarcoat where things stand with his lineup right now.
"We need to make some hard contact," Shelton said. "If I had a solution for it, it would be a lot easier. But right now, we're just in a little bit of a funk. We need to figure it out. We just need to create more baserunners, and we're not doing that."
It is hard to argue with him.
The Twins managed just three hits in each of the final two games of the series and could not get much going against Tampa Bay's pitching staff outside of the home opener on Friday, when Tristan Gray's grand slam powered a 10-4 win.
Since that big seventh inning on Friday, Minnesota's offense has mostly gone quiet.
The Numbers Tell the Story
Minnesota sits at 3-6 through nine games, going 1-2 in each of their first three series against Baltimore, Kansas City and Tampa Bay.
The team is hitting just .204 as a group, which ranks near the bottom of the league, and their slugging percentage of .349 does not offer much encouragement either.
Matt Wallner has provided some pop with three home runs, but the rest of the lineup has not done enough to pick things up around him.
Sunday's loss was a good example of the problem.
Simeon Woods Richardson pitched well enough to win, going six-plus innings and allowing just one run on a solo homer by Junior Caminero.
But the Twins' offense could not support him, and the game slipped away in extras when Richie Palacios launched a two-run shot off Justin Topa in the 10th.
Why This Shouldn't Come as a Surprise
The truth is that these struggles were expected by a lot of people heading into 2026. Minnesota went 70-92 last season and then spent the offseason shedding payroll rather than adding to the roster.
Shelton himself acknowledged during spring training that this would be a learning year for a young group, preaching a new approach to help his players stay positive through rough patches.
A rough patch is exactly what this is.
Byron Buxton is hitting .200 through nine games, Royce Lewis has just two home runs to show for his early at-bats, and the bottom of the order has been mostly invisible.
The young core that Minnesota is building around still has a lot of growing to do, and right now the growing pains are showing up in a big way at the plate.
Looking Ahead
Shelton was honest enough to admit he does not have a quick fix, and that kind of honesty is probably the right approach for a first-year manager with a rebuilding roster.
The Twins open a four-game set against Detroit on Monday at Target Field, and it would go a long way for this team to start stringing together some quality at-bats.
Nine games is a small sample, but the lack of hard contact Shelton is talking about is a real concern if it continues deep into April.