It’s been fun to watch the offense light up and show some grit during the Yankees series. If that continues the Twins are just fine.

 

Pitching not so much. It looks as if they’re running on fumes. Hopefully some new additions bring some energy to the pitching staff and we can feast on our division rivals in August and September. If the group as a whole can regress to their mean (or even right at or just above league average) I’m not too worried about making the playoffs.

 

Also, the Indians have been playing really hot the last month and that can’t last forever. They’re not as bad as they started the season but they’re not as good as they have been the last few weeks. Even a small cool-off by the Indians should give us a few more games of breathing room.

 

All we need is to be up by at least one game at the end of the year. I think this club can hang on and accomplish that.

 

 

LOL, I can't read that many sentences strung together without paragraphs.

The current state of the pitching staff is my concern, with pretty much everyone getting hit - it's becoming a "theme."

 

We scored enough runs against the Yankees to sweep them, and gave up enough runs to get swept. 

 

The latter has to be addressed - we're not playoff team with the staff pitching like this.

Could they miss the play offs? Umm...they are going to miss the play offs.

On a cold, very wet day in early May, I went to see the Twins lose once again at Yankee Stadium.  Still, I walked out (in the rain) saying to everybody who would hear, "We'll be back in October."  Now I'm not so sure...So, yeah, thanks for this "worry-thread."

Twins still get to play 33 games against Detroit, Chicago, and Kansas City.

 

Indians have 20 games left against those opponents.

 

After they play KC we should see where the Indians really are when they play Houston, LAA, Texas, Twins, Boston, Yankees. I think they are for real but other than us they haven't played a playoff caliber team since June 9th. Their recent hot streak was aided quite a bit by garbage teams.

 

Should be an entertaining stretch run to watch play out though.

 

The odds of making the playoffs increased today. Bad break for the Rays...

Some of y'all are awfully pessimistic. 26-37 the rest of the way given their schedule? Even I can't be that dire.

Some of y'all are awfully pessimistic. 26-37 the rest of the way given their schedule? Even I can't be that dire.

As pessimistic as only a fresh loss to the Yankees can make them. I’d place a large wager on the Twins being a playoff team. I’d venture to guess that most serious bettors would.

So knee jerk in the comments section...

 

The Indians are hot right now because they've only played one team above .500 in their last 7 series: The Twins! And they lost that series.

 

The Twins in the meantime, have played Tex, Oak (2x), Cleveland, and NYY. All teams above .500. 

 

The tables will turn and Cleveland will hit their tough stretch. They won't be beating teams like Oakland, NYY, and Boston either and the Twins will have their chance against bottom feeders like Cleveland just has.

 

Twins are winning this division. I would almost predict winning it running away.