Tonight's game features the Twins best starter* of 2016 - Ervin Santana (6-10, 3.54 ERA, 118 ERA+, 1.201 WHIP) who, in pitching for a bad team, is 4-3 in his past 7 starts (49 IP, 13 ER's, 11BB:40K, 2.39 ERA, with an average of 4 runs of support) including a 2-0 loss to Atlanta on July 26, and a 2-1 loss to Kansas City on Aug 21.

The Twins offense will see Jose Quintana, quietly(?) having the best year of his career (11-9, 2.77 ERA, 147 ERA+, 1.103 WHIP). Quintana, also pitching for a (pretty) bad team, is also 4-3 in his past 7 starts (48.2 IP's, 10 ER's, 8BB:38K, 1.85 ERA, also with an average of 4 runs of support).

Based on the remarkable similarity of their results over their past 7 starts, tonight could be a very fun game if you like pitching.

The Twins are 2-2 against Quintana this season, losing their first two meetings, but beating him on June 28th & July 29th (though he recorded 8 & 9 SO's in those games respectively).

RECAP
-The Twins are 49-84 (6 wins behind their Pythagorean projected 55-79) and are on pace for 102 losses.
-60-102 would tie their worst W-L% since moving to Minnesota - their 1982 record.**
-A loss tonight ties the Twins longest losing streak of 14 games, set between May 19 - June 2, 1982. (The Senators lost 18 consecutive games at least four times: 1903, '04, '48 & '59.)
-Thankfully, they've got a ways to go to catch the '88 Orioles at 21 games lost in a row, or the modern-era-leading 1961 Phillies with a 23 game losing streak.

On a more positive note, highlighted by dw early this morning, Dozier has accumulated 5.4 WAR*** this year, and at 2.5 WAR so far, Joe Mauer is only .6 WAR behind Kirby Puckett on the Twins career WAR list at 50.3, good for 6th all time.

*No other Twins starter has an ERA below 5, though reliever Ryan Pressly is 6-6 with a 3.65 ERA in 62 games
**There are 9 Senators teams with worse W-L%'s
***A career best. Maybe it goes without saying that 32 HR's and 81 RBI's (so far) are also career bests