Game 135: Twins at Tigers

First Pitch: 5:10 pm CDT

TV: FSN

Radio: TIBN

In classic Saturday-night-ball-in-a-city-that-operates-under-Eastern-time fashion, the Twins and Tigers will be starting up at the lovely hour of five o’clock tonight. As the old saying goes, it’s five o’clock somewhere, and tonight, somewhere is here, unless you’re not in Minnesota, in which case somewhere is there. In which case, I guess, it really is five o’clock somewhere, and we’re right back to where we started.

The Twins are on a roll right now, beating both Chicago and Detroit three times each in their last week of baseball. It’s the kind of run we’ve been counting on all season, where dominant performance against the division’s subpar teams allows us to stretch out our lead over Cleveland — which, by the way, now stands at 4.5 games on the last day of August.

Martin Perez gets the ball tonight, coming into the game with a 2.12 ERA in his last three starts. It’ll be his second consecutive outing against the Tigers; last weekend five strikeouts in six innings with just two runs allowed was enough to get him the win.

It was enough because Matthew Boyd — on the mound that day, and again tonight — allowed seven earned runs and walked five. It’s been a dreadful August for Boyd, who turned in a great start in Tampa Bay and fared decently in Texas and still has a 7.09 ERA this month. Minnesota will be looking to jump right back on the slugfest train.

GO TWINS GO!