MINNESOTA 8, KANSAS CITY 4
Record - 42-48 (4th in Central, 1.0 game out of 3rd)
Highest WPA - Liriano (7 IP, 1 ER, 4 SO, 2 BB), Plouffe! (2 for 4, HR, 2 RBI)
Lowest WPA - Danny V. (1 for 5, RBI) - the flyout double play in the first must have hurt him.
NOTES - 5 Twins had multi-hit games (Delmon, Plouffe, Mauer, Casilla, Nishioka)
Fangraphs
MLB Recap
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And so begins the second half.  Right out of the gate after the All-Star break the Twins have three 4-game series at home against AL Central teams.  With the doubleheader against Cleveland on Monday, the Twins will play 12 games in 11 days.  At the end of next week, when the dust clears, everyone in the Central will have played 100 or 101 games, so a lot of the "games in hand" that the Twins and Indians have had for most of the season will be gone.

I could have all kinds of fun breaking down all the potential outcomes over the next week and a half (and, trust me I have the spreadsheets to show that I have), and tell you what needs to happen to have the Indians, Tigers, White Sox, and Twins all within 0.5 games at the top of the standings next Sunday (it's unlikely).  Instead, let's consider what the Twins need to do to make up ground and whether or not they adhered to those guidelines in last night's victory.

First off: WIN

Losing games to division rivals makes the road incredibly harder.  Right now it's the Royals, whom Minnesota is no longer chasing, but it's good to stay in that groove.  A win tonight started things off on the right foot.

Save the bullpen

12 games in 11 days means we're going to see everyone in the bullpen at some point.  Unless the starters throw complete games.  Liriano did a nice job of rebounding after a shaky first inning.  The 2 runs that scored were the result of Joe Mauer taking a bad situation (a wild pitch) and making it worse with his attempted back-handed flip to no one, but Liriano shook that off, and kept the Royals off the board (for the most part) for the remainder of his 7 innings.  Nicely done, F-Bomb.

Beat Bruce Chen

This one is specific to this game, but to state it more generally - capitalize on opportunities.  When the offense stranded 8 baserunners in 4 innings, putting four 0's on the board, it needed to be said.  Fortunately, in the 5th, Minnesota went with the two-out rally template instead of getting baserunners on early in the inning, and it worked much better thanks to doubles from Valencia and Delmon and a donger from Plouffe!.

Extend leads

Rather than keeping this one close, the Royals bullpen melted down a bit in the 7th, walking 3, hitting one, and giving up a 2-run single to Joe Mauer.  When the third KC pitcher of the inning finally recorded the third out, the lead had been extended to 5 runs, and we got to see Mijares and Dumatrait instead of Perkins/Nathan/Capps (see point #2).

This was a good start to a very interesting stretch of games for the Twins.  Still too early to call them must-wins, but I feel comfortable calling them I'd-like-to-win games.