Bailey Ober
vs
Tanner Bibee
Twins should be up 2-0 this series but at least they have not fully collapsed and are at 1-1.
In non-pitching news, Buxton played his 94th game yesterday, the highest total since 2017's 140 (!!?) games. In his 94 games, he's accumulated 3.4 fWAR. Getting to 120 games next year could put him at a 4+ fWAR season.
Jack Kochanowicz
vs
Zebby Matthews
One game isn't enough to cleanse the ineptitude of the prior week but it's certainly nice to see.
This is Kochanowicz's rookie season and he has an interesting pitching line so far. He's pitched 38 ⅔ innings and struck out merely 12. To be fair to him, he spent the first four months of the season in AA. He hasn't been terrible, but duplicating Nick Blackburn's line in 2024 is a tough thing to do.
Ronny Henriquez
vs
Cole Sulser
Henriquez has zero MLB starts plus Varland is back with the Twins. Varland's previous appearance with the Saints was five innings in relief a week ago. I suspect Varland will show up in the second or third inning tonight too.
Chris Sale
vs
David Festa
On the plus side, the last week plus of games have all been winnable. The down side is not many of them have actually been won. 30 games left to decide whether the team actually makes the postseason.
The school days of Wordle.
West Coast day game!
Simeon Woods Richardson
vs
Matt Waldron
Twins finally get a day off tomorrow but they need one more day of the the bats and arms performing to avoid the sweep. Royals also lost yesterday to keep the tie for second wild card but Guardians won to put the division lead a tiny bit farther away.
Cole Ragans
vs
Louie Varland
Final home game against the Royals. They play one more series in three weeks in Kansas City. Last night's win was their seventh against the Royals and guaranteed an overall season win. I recommend the Twins not lose the remaining four games however.
Varland is back with the Twins officially. He was the 27th man on the roster for the doubleheader, was "sent" back to St. Paul where he made zero appearances, and now pitches again for the Twins.
Saturday game, in progress
Gavin Williams
vs
Simeon Woods Richardson
Sunday
Tanner Bibee
vs
David Festa
Split doubleheader day!
Day game:
Joey Cantillo
vs
Bailey Ober
Night game on Apple TV+:
Alex Cobb
vs
Louie Varland
Joe Ryan
vs
Javier Assad
Finally a day game at Wrigley.
The Twins scored three on Monday and won with some excellent pitching. They scored three runs again yesterday but were let down with poor pitching. Please score more than three so the pitchers don't have to be great again.
Final tuneup game before taking on the other AL Central contenders. There's a weekend series with the division leaders followed by three games against the team right behind the Twins in the wildcard standings.
