Around the AL Central (6/16): Cleveland Making a Run

My biggest hope this week is that we can slow down some of the good vibes that the Guardians have lately. Hopefully the Dodgers do their part and we can take the series in Arizona to set up what should be a great series in Minneapolis. 

I've been wanting a rotation of healthy Ryan,, Gray, Ober, Scmeltzer, Archer with Winder waiting in the wings.   Feels like they have been keeping it together with duct tape lately so hopefully we can go on a nice run with these guys.    Miranda has hit .318 with a .894 OPS in the last month so hopefully he is here to stay.     Ushela has been good the last month also.    Larnach had a great start to the season before injury but has been pretty bad since he came back.   He seems the most logical to send down to make way for Kiriloff.

I am cautiously hopeful. During this rough patch of our schedule, with all thehealth issues, especially in the pitching side, we are still ahead by 2 games. And also considering that it was a relatively easy part of Cleveland schedule. Now the schedule for them gets harder and we are starting to get back to health. More crucially, we are getting a lot of games against them. If they cannot beat us head to head, then we can breath more easily. Now, if they win sreies against us, then we are in trouble.

I still think the White Sox will be right there at the end if their starting pitching doesn't succumb to more long term injuries.  Their bats are starting to come around and they are different team when Anderson is in the lineup.  They have the easiest schedule from here on out.  They need to be able to beat up on the Twins and Guardians as well but they have the talent to do it.

Cleveland is still a wild card IMO.  They are a young team they always have solid pitching so they are always in games.  Their young hitters have been better this year.  Young teams can be pretty variable though.  They can slump hard or go on major winning streaks.  If and it is a big if the young guys stay relatively consistent I think they just wear everyone else down and take the division.

The Twins need better pitching and if they can get their starters back and not have to put Bundy out there every 5 days they have been able to hang in there even with the better teams this year.  The weakness though is still the pen.  The Twins have the weakest pen between the Guardians and White Sox.  I honestly think in the end the pen could lose them the division but we shall see.  The Offense has a lot of options almost too many options and it has lacked consistency.  Can't win games scoring zero runs.  With a healthy Buxton and Arraez and with Correa coming on strong this is a different team and if the young guys add to the tough outs the Twins could start to rival the Sox lineup.

I still like my Twins to win the division but there are so many ups and downs with injuries and close games won or lost that things could go all kinds of different ways.  I just hope the Twins are on top when the dust settles.

The 8 games against Cleveland in the next 2 weeks could make or break the season. If the Twins lose 6 of 8 they may be done.

Cleveland had a stretch of easier games, but now other than playing us, they have Dodgers, Red Sox, and Yankees until July 4th.  Where we will be playing below .500 teams, outside of them until July 12th when we face Brewers, who are not playing well, but that is a long way away.  Just as it normally is, the head to head games will be huge over next stretch to see where we shake out. Hopefully we win at least 5 of the 8 to expand lead and we win if not sweep some of the other series while Cleveland starts losing now that they facing better teams. 

I believe Cleveland is 6-12 against teams currently above .500, and if you include Angels, who were at the time above .500 when Cleveland played them, but went on crazy long losing streak, they are 6-16.  This next stretch will determine if Cleveland is actually a good team, or just better than the bad teams.  

We are 11-13 against teams currently above .500.  Still not great, but much better than 6-12.  I am not saying we are that much better than Cleveland, but we do need to pay attention to who they have been playing, and who they will be.  

6 minutes ago, rwilfong86 said:

The 8 games against Cleveland in the next 2 weeks could make or break the season. If the Twins lose 6 of 8 they may be done.

Way too much season left to say losing or winning 6 of 8 now will make the difference.  If we lose 6 of 8, even if the rest of the games over that time are the same, hopefully we win more than they do, then we would only be 2 games back, with about half a season to play. Much will happen over that time. 

1 hour ago, Dantes929 said:

I've been wanting a rotation of healthy Ryan,, Gray, Ober, Scmeltzer, Archer with Winder waiting in the wings.   Feels like they have been keeping it together with duct tape lately so hopefully we can go on a nice run with these guys.    Miranda has hit .318 with a .894 OPS in the last month so hopefully he is here to stay.     Ushela has been good the last month also.    Larnach had a great start to the season before injury but has been pretty bad since he came back.   He seems the most logical to send down to make way for Kiriloff.

Agreed on the rotation.  With Smeltzer doing well and Archer holding on, Ryan and Gray have a chance to lead this team on a hot streak.

FWIW - Below are Larnach's, Miranda's (SSS), and Urshela's savant profiles.

18 minutes ago, TwinsAce said:

Agreed on the rotation.  With Smeltzer doing well and Archer holding on, Ryan and Gray have a chance to lead this team on a hot streak.

FWIW - Below are Larnach's, Miranda's (SSS), and Urshela's savant profiles.

I do not understand these graphs.   Are you sure they are recent?   for example Miranda has 121 plate appearances.   Is Larnach upper left and Urshella lower left.?    Does not seem to have any correlation to what BR shows of their last 30 days.  

1 hour ago, Trov said:

Way too much season left to say losing or winning 6 of 8 now will make the difference.  If we lose 6 of 8, even if the rest of the games over that time are the same, hopefully we win more than they do, then we would only be 2 games back, with about half a season to play. Much will happen over that time. 

Hopefully I'm wrong and the Twins sweep AZ this weekend and then win all 8 against Cleveland and run away with the division by the All Star Break.

2 hours ago, Dantes929 said:

I do not understand these graphs.   Are you sure they are recent?   for example Miranda has 121 plate appearances.   Is Larnach upper left and Urshella lower left.?    Does not seem to have any correlation to what BR shows of their last 30 days.  

The order was Larnach, Miranda (smaller one), and Urshela. To my knowledge, baseball savant is updated daily.  But agreed, seems odd that Miranda doesn't have more stats filled out.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/jose-miranda-669304?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb

4 hours ago, Trov said:

Way too much season left to say losing or winning 6 of 8 now will make the difference.  If we lose 6 of 8, even if the rest of the games over that time are the same, hopefully we win more than they do, then we would only be 2 games back, with about half a season to play. Much will happen over that time. 

Cleveland has been red hot but gets the Dodgers and hopefully they lose some of those games, people in baseball think the White Sox will get hot and make things interesting, and they've won 3 in a row. Hopefully playing 3 games in Houston will cool them off a bit. The Central will be an interesting race down the stretch. As far as who comes out on top, I think it will ultimately come down to who is healthiest down the stretch and which teams make moves the soonest. The fan part of me wants to believe the Twins will win, but being realistic it will be tough. 

The Twins are playing at a .623 clip over their past 53 games despite numerous injuries and wildly inconsistent hitting and relief pitching.  That's a pretty durable accomplishment, so keep that reality in mind over the next two weeks no matter what happens during a much shorter game span against a competitive division rival.

Having a weekly AL Central review would be a great service to the fans.  Thank you.