Game Recap: Twins 8, Cleveland 2

White Sox won their nightcap, although a late 7-1 lead turned into a save situation and they had to use Hendriks to close it out, final 7-5.

Twins are 11.5 games back, same as KC and DET. (Tied with KC for last place, percentage points behind DET.)

2 hours ago, Dodecahedron said:

Winning 7 out of 10 sounds nice, but they really need to sweep.  Winning 7 would only move them up 2 games from splitting the series. 

Because it's head to head, moving up 2 games from 5-5 to 7-3 would be a net 4 game gain in the standings.

11.5 out now, so we'd still need to make up an additional 7.5 games outside the head-to-head games, which won't be easy. But if CHW is struggling enough to lose 7 of 10 to us (with 7 of those games in Chicago), it's possible. (FWIW, we've made up 4.5 games over our last 8.)

43 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

Yes, but let's full picture this.  4 games with each team moving 2 games closer to .500.  The Twins moving up merely 2 games does nothing for the Twins prospect of coming back.  Going 7-3 is nice, but it does little to change the trajectory of either team.  If the Twins are going to take any real ground, they have to sweep.

I'm not sure the point of the .500 framing? We need to gain ground on Chicago, not on .500 (.500 is just a marker along the way). Twins moving up 2 games and the White Sox simultaneously moving down 2 games is a 4 game swing.

The Twins are 11.5 games back of Chicago with 86 games to play. It's a tall order any way you slice it, but it's simply not reasonable to demand they must make up 87% of their deficit over just 12% of the remaining games. Comebacks like this generally don't happen all at once. 2006 Twins were 11 games back on this date, and went 6-4 in their remaining 10 games with 1st place Detroit, and 8-4 vs 2nd place Chicago. (And before anyone chimes in that the 2006 Twins were better than the 2021 club, sure they were, but the point is their standing relative to 1st and 2nd place, not absolute team quality. FWIW, 2006 Detroit and Chicago were better than their 2021 counterparts Chicago and Cleveland too.)

7-3 is simply a baseline for this 10 game slice, to get back in the hunt. (More wins are always better, of course.) If you set the bar at 10-0, just save us all the time and say it's impossible -- you wouldn't be the only one saying that.

We're 11.5 games back with 86 remaining.

If we can go 7-3 vs Chicago,

then we have 76 games to make up the other 7.5.

Still a tall order, like I said, but if these Twins actually have it in them to take 7 of 10 from Chicago (with 7 of those 10 games *in* Chicago), and Chicago has it in them to lose those games, then a 7.5 game swing over the other 76 games is not insurmountable. (Not likely, of course, but we're well beyond the point where a comeback is likely. We just have to chip away.)

9 minutes ago, Dodecahedron said:

If the Twins go 7-3, it would take a lot of luck for the Twins to gain significant ground at all if the goal is to make the playoffs.

I mean, no one disputes that it will take a lot of luck (plus improved play) to come back at this point.

Your 10-0 vs Chicago, with 7 of those games on the road, would represent an incredible concentration of luck and improved play. It would be great if they can do it, and they should obviously try to win as many as possible, but no, they don't "need" to do that unless you just mean to say a comeback is impossible. Very few 3 month comebacks in history have had that concentration of luck and improved play.

I think 7-3 over those 10 games represents the *minimum* amount of luck and improved play (and poor play, from Chicago's perspective) necessary to give us a fighting chance. That would leave a deficit of 7.5 for the remaining 76 games, or the need to make up 1 game on average per 10 games. If we can do that through August 11 (the end of our season series with Chicago), we'll be 4.5 games behind them with 46 to play. We've already made up 4.5 games over our last 8. Cleveland will be another hurdle, but like I said, fighting chance.

I've heard Chicago announcers making the same argument in reverse -- they really want to split the 4 game series this week to keep the Twins down and put a stop to their recent slide. They'll still be the favorite regardless, but they're not going to be comforted if they only win 1 out of 4 at home.

6 hours ago, Aerodeliria said:

When thinking about playing the Chisox, winning 7 against the Pale Hose would still mean 7.5 games adrift while winning 8 would mean 4.5 games back

8 of 10 would be 5.5 games back. not 4.5.

I think we're talking about different things. If the Twins swept 10 out of 10 from the White Sox, even though it wouldn't erase the full current 11.5 game deficit, the Twins would be considered the favorites at that point -- it would obviously signify a massive CWS collapse and MIN turnaround. Heck, we might have a commanding lead by Sep. 1st in that scenario. 9-1 might have similar effects. Even 8-2 would mean at least one MIN sweep of CWS on the road -- CWS would still be favored but it would be a dramatic shift.

But my threshold here isn't a dramatic shift from just 10 games. Would be great if that happened, but that's probably not realistic with an 11.5 game deficit, and not how these comebacks generally go:

1978 Yankees went 7-3 vs BOS during their comeback

1995 Mariners went 2-3 vs the Angels in theirs

2012 A's went 7-6 in their final 13 games vs TEX

And I've already posted about the 2006 Twins comeback vs DET/CWS

So that's why I set the "getting back in the race" / " not quite done" threshold at 7-3. 7-3 won't give us good playoff odds, we'd require luck and good performance in our remaining games, and we'd still more than likely fall short in the end, maybe even require a game 163 -- that's just the reality of comeback attempts like this --  but it would represent a start at the attempt. (Obviously more wins beyond this threshold would be great, and we shouldn't concede any of these 10 games just because we hit the threshold early!)

* And that 7-3 assumes an even distribution of wins across series -- sweeping them 3-0 in August after a 4-3 July might be too little, too late. Really, we'd need to be at least 5-2 vs CWS through July 21, and make up another game or two outside of head-to-head games by that point too. Then buy at the trade deadline and try to keep it up through August and September.

1 minute ago, Dodecahedron said:

True, but one other problem....

At 7-3, the Twins still sell at the trade deadline.

Only 7 of the 10 games vs CWS are before the trade deadline anyway.

But as I alluded to at the end of my previous post, if we can climb to around 6.5 games out after July 21st as the deadline approaches (likely aided by 5-2 or better vs CWS), I'm not convinced the 2021 Twins will be sellers. We were sellers in that range in 2017-2018 but we were in a different phase of the cycle then (pre-Donaldson, lots of young players, etc.). Selling in that spot in 2021 (or just failing to get back in the race) may just be setting up the front office and/or coaching staff to lose their jobs if 2022 isn't a massive rebound.

I think they've got to try to make a good run here at the end of 2021, even if they ultimately fall short, to reclaim a little leash for 2022.

1 minute ago, Dodecahedron said:

You're too fixated on GB.  If the Twins are 6.5 games out, the Twins are under .500.  Under .500 teams do not consider themselves in the hunt.

I think you're too fixated on .500.

.500 isn't great but it's not particularly meaningful without context. Not all .500 teams/records are in equal circumstances.

The Twins would still be under .500 through July 21st with a 15-6 run in our next 21 games. But a 9-10 White Sox record in the same time period (with Cleveland no better than 11-8) would put us 6.5 games back. I highly doubt the Twins FO would say "welp, under .500, have to sell" at that point. At the very least, they'd let things play out closer to July 30.

2017-2018, they may approach that record with an eye to sell, but not 2021 -- they've invested too much in contending already this season to give up that easily.

1 minute ago, Dodecahedron said:

The safer way to recoup their investment is to sell things.  Remember, this is a business.

Getting themselves fired is safe?