It’s overcast and warm as the Minnesota Twins prepare to take on the Cleveland Indians in the first of three games to start a six-game homestand. It’ll be a pair of righties tangling on the mound, as the Indians will send Danny Salazar (4.15 ERA, 3.72 FIP in 80.1 innings) out while the Twins will counter with Bartolo Colon (6.77 ERA, 4.73 FIP in 94.1 innings).

More on that in a bit.

The Twins come into the series 59-57 -- five games behind first-place Cleveland and in search of their first win over the Indians in Minneapolis. The Indians are 64-52, and 6-4 over their last 10 games, while the Twins are 8-2 over their last 10. This is the time to take advantage of head-to-head divisional matchups, manager Paul Molitor said.

“Obviously it carries a little more significance than the other times we’ve played them during the year,” Molitor said during his pregame availability. “They’re the team in our division that’s above us. The inter-divisional games are always two-game swings each and every time you play. You can cut (the deficit in the division) to four or increase it to six -- we’re aware of that. We’d like to continue to do some of the things we’ve been doing.”

What are those things, you might ask?

“We’ve been pitching well enough,” Molitor said. “Our offense has been as hot maybe as it has been all year. We hope to continue to do that. We’ll try to keep it in perspective with the amount of games we have remaining, and the fact you’re just trying to win games. It should be fun with Colon pitching tonight and the Indians coming in on a nice night at Target Field.”

Please click through to ZoneCoverage.com to read the rest of this article here!