It was a tough week for the Minnesota Twins, who for the first time all season lost four straight games and ended up dropping five-of-six at home as they played the Atlanta Braves and surging Cleveland Indians.
With a 4-1 win on Saturday night, the Twins snapped a tie with the Indians and regained a one-game lead for first place in the American League Central. Cleveland’s 10-inning 7-3 victory on Sunday put the Twins and Indians back in a tie with identical 71-47 (.602) records. There’s a good chance that the Indians, who hosted Boston Monday night, could be alone at the top of the division by the time this column appears in Wednesday’s paper.
While the red-hot Indians have been playing incredible all-around baseball in July and August (as witnessed by their perfect relay from the left-field fence to nail Ehire Adrianza at the plate, cutting down Sunday’s potential winning run in the bottom of the ninth), the two high-caliber squads will likely frequently trade places in a keenly-competitive chase for the division title the rest of the way.
The Indians have seven games coming up in New York — four at Yankee Stadium, followed by three against the Mets. If they win five of those and emerge with a lead of three games or more, they will be in the driver’s seat. How about if they lose five games in the Big Apple? If that happens, the Twins — who play two games in Milwaukee and four in Texas against the Rangers this week — could regain the lead and be well-positioned with home games versus the White Sox and Tigers the following week.
The Twins and Indians play each other six more times, three games at Target Field in early September and three in Cleveland in the middle of the month (September 13-14-15). After that, the Twins close out the memorable 2019 campaign with three games against the White Sox (at home), four games against the Royals (also at home), three games in Detroit and three games in Kansas City.
Minnesota’s last home game is September 22 and the regular-season finale is at Kaufmann Stadium, a week later on Sunday, September 29.
It’s going to an interesting last seven weeks of what has been an amazing spring and summer for the greatly-improved — and exceptionally well-balanced — Minnesota Twins.
I had a chance to see the Twins in person last Tuesday night (August 6) when they hosted the Braves in the second game of that high-scoring series. Miguel Sano’s ninth-inning walk-off homer had lifted Minnesota to a 5-3 victory on Monday night and there was plenty of excitement and anticipation as the large crowd settled in for Tuesday’s contest.
Atlanta’s leadoff hitter — Ronald Acuna, Jr. — blasted the first pitch by Jose Berrios deep over the center-field fence and the Braves had a quick 1-0 lead. The lead grew to 4-0 and increased to 11-0 as Nelson Cruz had Minnesota’s only two hits through five innings. Cruz and Mitch Garver each homered in the bottom of the sixth and the Twins crowd came alive. An inning later, Cruz put another bomb in the seats and the score was 11-6.
Unfortunately, the Twins ran out of answers and dropped a 12-7 decision, which was followed by an 11-9 loss on Wednesday. Then Cleveland came to town and won three-of-four competitive games (7-5, 6-2 and 7-3) to draw even with the Twins, heading into the season’s final 44 much-anticipated contests.
A total of 15 Twins have combined for a franchise-record 228 home runs this season. Eleven players have 10 or more homers, with five of those having hit at least 20. Cruz and Max Kepler are tied for the lead with 32. Eddie Rosario (25), Garver (21) and Sano (20) are next, followed by C.J. Cron (19), Jorge Polanco (17), Jonathan Schoop (16), Marwin Gonzales (13), Jason Castro (12) and Bryon Buxton (10). Now that’s balance — 11 players with double-figure home runs.
Adrianza (4), Willians Austidillo (3), Jake Cave (2) and Luis Arraez (2) have combined to hit 11 more and have each contributed in so many other ways.
Now, if our pitching just comes through better down the stretch?
Fall sports for high school athletes began Monday and another anticipated season of competitive action is fast approaching.
Congratulations to the Hadley Buttermakers who will again be playing in the State Amateur Baseball Tournament, which starts this weekend (August 16-18) in Maple Lake and Delano. Hadley earned playoff series victories over Heron Lake, Windom and Luverne to qualify before being edged by Fairmont in two-of-three games in the Region 13C championship series.
The Buttermakers have drafted Heron Lake pitcher Justin Jass to bolster their rotation for the state tournament. Congrats to Justin for being Hadley’s third selection in the draft — that’s a nice honor.
