Joe Ryan
vs
Triston McKenzie
Ryan makes his second start tonight and the Twins hope to make it four wins in a row and win the series. Cleveland is also at 68-68 so another lose would put them back under .500. They topped out at 10 wins above .500 a couple times, last on June 24 in a win against the Twins. They then lost two, won once, and lost nine times to back to .500. They've since been at best three games over .500 and at worst three games under .500.
East coast time plus holiday early start
But the Twins have a lead
Christmas 2019 - we collaborated with the grandparents who live in Tampa to get tickets for the Twins trip to Tampa in the upcoming 2020 season. It would be the little guy's 8th lifetime MLB ballpark in his eighth year. We were kind of unofficially doing our own little 30 in 30 thing.
Well, the Twins never went to Tampa in 2020. We rescheduled for this series, hoping travel would be prudent and attending a game would be an acceptable risk. It turns out that isn't the case either, so we are watching from home and rescheduling the trip again for 2022 (the Twins visit Tampa in April - can't wait to find out what will postpone it this time). We're still sitting on 7 ballparks and we've kind of lost our momentum. A tentative plan to knock out both LA ballparks next year is in the works, I'll let you all know.
Jorge Polanco is playing against the Rays today. He's got an .808 slugging percentage in his last 7 games and he is currently on pace to finish the season with 31 HR/98 RBI.
Also there's the rest of the Twins. Griffin Jax takes the mound.
Justin Steele
vs
Joe Ryan
Olympic silver medalist, Joe Ryan, makes his MLB debut tonight. He's done well throughout his minor league career. He put up a 12.5 K/9 and a Rhu_Ru-approved 1.6 BB/9 this year in AAA with the Rays and Twins. Only two of those starts came as a Saint and struck out half of his batters faced (17 strikeouts, 34 batters faced). I am skeptical he will be that good in this start, but it is the Cubs.
Just think back in March you were looking at the schedule and your eyes focus on this series. A late summer two game match-up between two teams at the top of their division, perhaps an early World Series preview???... Alas, here we are and both teams struggling and a combined 33 games under .500. Instead of a clash of titans, two teams happy the calendar turns to September tomorrow.
Zach Davis on the mound for the Cubs and he got shellacked last week against the White Sox. More of that please. John Gant for the Twins and he hasn't done much but at least he's not J.A. Happ. I kinda wanted to make a Ron Gant mistaken identity gag here but just couldn't pull it off.
Looks like a gorgeous night to watch some baseball with first pitch at 7:10p.
Twins Lineup
2b - Arraez
CF - Buxton
DH - Polanco
3B - Donaldson
RF - Kepler
1B - Sano
LF - Rooker
C - Rortvedt
SS - Simmons
Uh, day game alert I guess?
The Twins seem to have the Brewers' number this year, if it wasn't for the combined efforts of Bad Colomé and Bad Dobnak on opening day, we'd be looking at the possibility of a season sweep. Instead, as the saying goes, we'll have to settle for 5-1 if they get a win today.
Josh Donaldson is doing well. In the last 5 series he's played 14 games in a row while hitting .309/.377/.582 which is in the rarified air that we call "a higher OPS than Jorge Polanco" for that time.
Luis Arraez has 365 plate appearances in 129 team games. If he goes 17 for 38 today, he would qualify for, and take the lead in, the AL batting race. His .303 average is 5th best in the league among those with more than 175 PA.
Griffin Jax is pitching today, bouncing back from a rough start against Boston. He had strung together a few good starts before that, and he won't be facing the Red Sox today so I choose optimism.
I'm honestly surprised that this game is going off on time. It was pretty rainy a couple hours west in my neck of the woods a few hours ago. Regardless, we press on.
Charlie Barnes starts tonight. He strikes me as maybe the tenth best starter to log a start for the Twins this year, but it would be nice if he could do just enough to support a lineup that suddenly looks reasonably major league capable.
Buxton's back, that's good enough for me. Go twins!
Baseball?
Game Time - 6:10 p.m. CT
After winning in spectacular gut-wrenching, extra-inning, bomba-blasting fashion to even the series in Boston last night, the Twins seek to win their fourth series this month by taking tonight's rubber game. Rocco seems determined to see if John Gant can be turned back into a starting pitcher after two years of bullpen duty, so he'll be pitching the initial frames for the Twins tonight. The Red Sox, 7.5 games back of the Rays and 3 behind the Yankees, are feeling the pressure to win games and at least secure a wild card berth in the playoffs. They'll be sending Chris Sale to the mound for just his third start in two years following Tommy John surgery. But they've been really good starts. He's 2-0 with a 1.80 ERA and 13 strikeouts in 10 innings. Play ball!
