As Twins manager Rocco Baldelli sat down to address the media on Tuesday night, he took a light blue marker to the piece of paper on the podium that read “Stay humble,” and crossed out the last four letters of the second word.

He then wrote out a new word.

“Stay humble,” the paper now reads.

That’s the message Baldelli is hoping to impart to his team, which dropped its seventh of nine games on Tuesday night.

The Twins competed one four-run comeback in the game. Doing it twice was simply not in the cards. After rallying back to tie game in the eighth inning, the Twins fell behind by four runs again in the 10th and this time, their rally came up short. The Twins fell 8-6 in 10 innings at Target Field after the Atlanta Braves tagged Jhoan Duran for four runs.

“I’m a pitcher and sometimes you can have a day like that,” Duran, who retired just one of the six batters he faced, said. “It’s not like every day you throw good, you know?”

The loss was the Twins’ (72-60) third straight and was yet another tough defeat in a week and a half that seems to be full of them.

After a 10-6 loss to the Braves (72-60) a night before, Baldelli addressed his team. First baseman Carlos Santana, who made multiple highlight reel grabs in Tuesday’s game, took a simple message from it.

“Keep (focused),” Santana said of Baldelli’s speech. “One month left. Try to finish strong.”

The Twins have exactly 30 games remaining in their season. They are in position to win a Wild Card berth and are trying to chase down Cleveland and Kansas City, who now are tied atop the American League Central and are 2 1/2 games in front of the Twins.

“There’s a lot of high hopes for this club, a lot of lofty goals. But if we want to achieve those goals, we’ve got to play better baseball,” catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “Yeah, we understand we’re relying on some young guys, we’re relying on young guys to give us really important roles. We’re depleted with injuries. There’s a lot of things you can point fingers at. But at the end of the day, we believe in this team and we know we’ve got to play better.”

They’re doing so without some of their top players — Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan are among those who are on the injured list — but they still firmly believe in the group of players they have on the field.

That group of players rallied back in the seventh inning for three runs after threatening to break through in each of the first six innings to cut into Atlanta’s four-run lead.

The Braves had scored two runs in the second on a Michael Harris II home run off starter Simeon Woods Richardson and another two in the fifth on a Marcell Ozuna single, but Trevor Larnach’s single in the eighth inning fully complete the comeback and wiped that lead away entirely.

They showed some fight two innings later after Duran gave up the four runs, stringing together three straight singles to produce a pair of runs before Matt Wallner struck out to end the game.

“We still have 30 games left to play,” Baldelli said. “There’s a lot of time do so some damage, so it’s time to do some damage.”

Atlanta Braves’ Michael Harris II hits a 2-run home run during the first inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, Tuesday, Aug. 27, 2024, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

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What’s likely to stand as the most-attended concert of this year’s Minnesota State Fair Grandstand season saw two guys who last had hits during the Obama administration set a sold-out crowd of 14,005 on fire Tuesday night.

It turns out T-Pain and Ludacris have a lot more smashes between them that one might remember and the pairing proved to be the perfect match for the Great Minnesota Get-Together. The pair offered an evening of breezy, nostalgic bangers that had the well-lubricated audience singing and dancing along.

Best known for his use of Auto-Tune (even though he’s got a great singing voice), Faheem “T-Pain” Najm clearly surprised some fans by starting promptly at 7 p.m. (Unless there are weather issues, Grandstand shows follow a tight schedule.) But he quickly won over the whole place with his playfully goofy stage presence.

Midway through his hour-long show, T-Pain gave a shout-out to a fan in the crowd hoisting an “I (heart) T-Pain” sign and dressed in the rapper’s signature top hat and white sunglasses. With a smile, he then dedicated his 2005 breakthrough “I’m ‘n Luv (Wit a Stripper)” to her. Much of his other banter was far too racy to repeat here, but he did accurately call the crowd and show “fun as hell.”

T-Pain packed in more than 20 songs (both his own and tracks he guested on), even if many were cut down to a verse and chorus. “Chopped ‘n’ Skrewed,” “Can’t Believe It,” “Best Love Song,” “Low,” “Hey Baby (Drop It to the Floor),” “5 O’Clock,” “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’)” and “Welcome to My Hood” all earned cheers from the audience.

Christopher “Ludacris” Bridges followed a similar path, winnowing down his hits (and guest spots) to their essence. And where T-Pain’s staging was sparse at best, Ludacris had more razzle-dazzle to back him including an intro video that featured a nod to his role in the long-running “Fast and Furious” franchise. Later, he asked how many people knew him from the movies and the crowd roared back in response.

While he resorted to some tired concert tricks — “you guys are the loudest crowd we’ve ever had,” that sort of thing — Ludacris chose his set list wisely, with a midsection run of Usher’s “Yeah,” Taio Cruz’s “Break Your Heart,” Justin Bieber’s “Baby” and Fergie’s “Glamorous” hitting the crowd hard. His own numbers — “Money Maker,” “How Low,” “Move Bitch,” “Stand Up” — also helped to fashion a fun and memorable evening.

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Ramsey County Manager Johanna Berg and incoming County Manager Ling Becker presented a revised supplemental budget for 2025 on Tuesday with a local levy increase of 4.75 percent in keeping with the 2024-2025 biennial budget approved in December.

The revised budget totals $848.5 million – a five percent increase from the 2024 budget of $808.49 million. The original proposed 2025 supplemental budget of $835 million was a 3.3 percent budget increase from the 2024 supplemental budget.

The revised budget includes more than $13 million in additional spending, but that spending is covered by grants, so no changes were made to the levy increase that the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners approved in December as part of the biennial budget, according to Berg and Becker.

About 45.8 percent of the county’s budget is funded through property taxes. The rest comes from intergovernmental revenues, charges for services and other sources.

The estimated impact on the county’s portion of 2025 property taxes for a median value single-family home in St. Paul will be a 4.2 percent increase, according to county officials. The total impact, including city, school district and other levies, is estimated at a 5.1 percent increase, or $196. The median home value in St. Paul is $275,300.

Market values are up in residential property classes compared to St. Paul commercial, industrial and apartment property classes, causing more of the tax burden to shift this year to residential properties, officials said.

The budget includes more than $13 million in additional spending covered by grants that will not impact the local levy.

Of that, $9.3 million comes from a 2023 legislation grant to Ramsey County to provide treatment homes for youth in the justice system and support and resources for families as part of violence prevention programming.

An additional $2.58 million will go to embedding Basic Sliding Fee Child Care, which helps income-eligible families pay for child care, within Ramsey County Financial Assistance Services.

Budget hearings will be conducted by the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners in September to hear updates on performance measures from county service teams. Community members will be able to provide feedback during public hearings in September and early December on the 2025 supplemental budget before its expected approval Dec. 17.

For more information on those hearings, visit ramseycounty.us/content/public-hearings-2025-supplemental-budget.

To learn more about property tax relief, visit revenue.state.mn.us/property-tax-refund.

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