This week in preview: Road sweet road against weak division rivals

Okay, so maybe I jinxed it last week. But at least the Minnesota Twins went .500 during their six-game home stand against the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers. Hey, guess what? They get to see these two teams again this week! The Bomba Squad had an off day yesterday and now are in the Windy City to take on the Pale Hose again at Comiskey Park U.S. Cellular Field Guaranteed Rate Field before heading off to Detroit for a weekend-wrap-around series.

at White Sox

The pitching matchups won’t be the same as the series this past week, but the Twins will see Lucas Giolito again tonight. If you don’t recall, he pitched a complete game shutout against our squad in the rubber match on Wednesday afternoon.

Otherwise, Twins batters will see two faces that they are a little familiar with this season. Ross Detwiler will start on Wednesday. He’s been used both out of the pen and as a starter for the White Sox and their AAA affiliate this year. In fact, his first start was against Minnesota and he got the W. He’s faced the Twins two other times out of the bullpen. All together, he sports a 4.50 ERA in 10 innings, allowing 11 hits, five earned runs, and three bombas, striking out eight while walking none.

Dylan Cease is the probable starter for Thursday’s contest. This is the first major-league season that the righty has seen, starting nine times for the Pale Hose, posting a 5.76 ERA in 50.0 innings, allowing 32 earned runs, 11 homers, and a K/BB rate of 2.27. His H/9 and WHIP are a bit high (9.0 and 1.480, respectively). He’s started against the Twins once this season, taking the loss back on July 26 in Minneapolis, where he allowed five earned runs in five innings on 98 pitches.

Since they last faced the Twins, the White Sox have gotten back third baseman Yoan Moncada from the IL for their series against the Texas Rangers. He’s been hitting .300/.356/.545 this year with 22 homers and 63 RBI; his line against the Twins this season is .371/.389/.686 with 3 homers and six RBI. Chicago took three out of four from the Rangers in Chicago.

Announced starters:
Tues., Aug. 27 (7:10p Central): Michael Pineda (9-5, 4.26 ERA) vs Lucas Giolito (14-6, 3.20)
Wed., Aug. 28 (7:10p): Jake Odorizzi (13-6, 3.57) vs Ross Detwiler (2-3, 5.51)
Thurs., Aug. 29 (1:10p): Jose Berrios (10-7, 3.53) vs Dylan Cease (3-6, 5.76)

at Tigers

After the series in Chicago, the Twins will fly to Detroit to take on Ron Gardenhire and the Detroit Tigers again. I’m sure we’ll hear about Jack Morris a bunch on both the television and radio, so if you’re into that, you’re in luck. The Tigers play host to the Cleveland Indians before the Bomba Squad comes into town, so hopefully Detroit can use all their runs against Cleveland before the Twins come to town.

Probables aren’t announced since this series starts on Friday, but going by the rotation, the Twins will likely once again see Drew VerHagen, Edwin Jackson, and Matthew Boyd. The Tigers rotation will line up Spencer Turnbull on the mound for Monday’s game. The Twins will likely go with Kyle Gibson, Martin Perez, Michael Pineda, and Jake Odorizzi in return before heading to Fenway Park to take on the Boston Red Sox.

American League Central Race

The Twins own a 3.5-game lead over Cleveland heading into tonight’s contest. As mentioned before, Cleveland is in Detroit to face the Tigers before flying down to Tropicana Field to face the Tampa Bay Rays for a three-game set. If you haven’t heard, their third baseman Jose Ramirez landed on the IL this past week with a fractured hand and could be out for a month. They were swept out of New York by the Mets and went home to take two out of three from the Kansas City Royals, dropping the final game in ten innings on Sunday.

Byron Buxton is in rehab with A-level Cedar Rapids and could possibly be reinstated this week.