Your Minnesota Twins are coming off an off day, and a sweep of the Baltimore Orioles, who have a pretty good record. The next opponent, the Tampa Bay Rays, does not have such a good record, and comes into town at .500, but as Twins fans, we probably shouldn’t underestimate an AL East opponent. The Twins are currently an 11-13 team at home, while being incredibly good on the road. Hopefully this is the series where they start to turn around that home record. The rotation for the Twins is still in flux, so you are stuck with a best guess as to the starters.
Tampa actually ranks in the top half of the league in most offensive categories, notably 3rd in dongs (Minnesota is somehow 13th, if you were curious) and they’ll be facing the back end of the rotation, better known as TBD. This has the makings of a couple bad games for Twins pitching. To make matters worse, Tampa also ranks well in ERA and BAA, and their pitching staff has the 3rd lowest OPS in the AL as well. Their record is based on sloppy baseball (3rd in Errors and 3rd lowest Fielding Percentage.) Tampa has also played a lot more baseball than the Twins, to this point.
Enjoy some Memorial Day Weekend Baseball! Summer is unofficially here.
Pitching Match-Ups
Game 1: Friday, 5/26, 7:10 pm CT – Hector Santiago LHP vs. Chris Archer RHP
Game 2: Saturday 5/27 1:10 pm CT – TBD (Probably Adalberto Mejia LHP) vs. Jake Odorizzi RHP
Game 3: Sunday, 5/28, 1:10 am CT – TBD (Probably Kyle Gibson RHP) vs. Alex Cobb RHP
Notes
- Tampa was shut out for 18 straight innings by the Angels. Fortunately for them, old friend Ricky Nolasco was pitching game three.
- Speaking of old friends, Wilson Ramos is currently employed by Tampa, but is on the 60-day DL, and is expected to not play until at least June.
- Quite a few Twins have faced Chris Archer, and as expected from a pitcher of his caliber, most of them have done poorly. The outliers might surprise you – Buxton has 2 hits and one strike-out against him, and Gimenez has an OPS of 1.500 The Twins who have faced him most are Castro and Dozier, who are both 2-for-17.
- Byron Buxton is 1-for-2 with a triple, and Brian Dozier has hit .429 with a HR against Odorizzi
- The Twins haven’t faced Alex Cobb much, and the only Twins with hits off him are Dozier and Eduardo Escobar
- Hector Santiago has been hit hard by the Tampa Line-up thus far, owning a .302/.393/.472 triple slash. Kyle Gibson has been even worse, they’ve hit him at a rate of .339/.418/.424. On the bright side, Mejia has never faced them.