TheTeufelShuffle

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMUATION The Twins have an off day on 4-30-20. I will give an end of month update below with plenty of links. AL CENTRAL STANDINGS Cleveland 17-3 (7-6 since mid April update) Minnesota 23-8 Tied for first (10-2) Chicago 18-13 (11-2) Kansas City 14-16 (5-7) Detroit 5-25 (1-11) The Twins are the best team in baseball with a 74.2% winning percentage. We also have the best score differential at +85, the Indians and Astros are the next closest at +83. Surprisingly, the White Sox have even been hotter than the Twins have been going 11-2 in their last 13 games, but their slow start still puts them in third in the Central. The Twins are 11-2 vs LHP, 12-2 in night games and 6-2 in one run games. The other AL division leaders are Tampa and Houston with Cleveland and Chicago getting the wild card spots. Oakland fell out of the wild card spot by 2.5 games since the mid April update. In the NL Philly, Chicago and Colorado continue to lead their divisions with the Dodgers and Washington taking the early Wild card positions. Link to the standings here: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/Standings.aspx?OrgID=116202 LEAGUE LEADERS Average AL-------------------------------------------NL 1. Tim Anderson CWS .396 --------------- 1. Eric Sogard Mil .402 2. Alex Verdugo Bos .345 ------------------2. Howie Kendrick Wash .376 3. Danny Santana TEX .344 ---------------3. Omar Navarae MIL .367 OPS AL-------------------------------------------NL 1. Mike Trout LAA 1.100 -----------------1. Howie Kendrick Wash 1.160 2. Hunter Dozier KC 1.089 --------------2. Andrew McCutchen Phi 1.148 3. Mitch Garver Min 1.065 ---------------3. Christian Yelich Mil 1.099 HRs AL-------------------------------------------NL 1. Max Kepler Min 10---------------------- 1. Aristides Aquino Cin 17 1. Alex Bregman Hou 10 -------------------2. Manny Machado SD 11 3. 8 players with 8 --------------------------3. Howie Kendrick Wash 10 -----------------------------------------------3. Javier Baez ChC 10 ERA AL--------------------------------------------NL 1. John Means Bal 1.31 -------------------1. Anibal Sanchez Wash 1.51 2. Mike Clevinger Cle 1.49 ----------------2. Anthony DeSclafani Cin 1.62 3. Charlie Morton TB 1.61 ----------------3. Antonio Senzatela Col 2.06 Strikeouts AL--------------------------------------------NL 1. Gerrit Cole NYY 92---------------------- 1. Yu Darvish ChC .72 2. Justin Verlander Hou 83 -----------------2. Patrick Corbin Wash 71 3. Lucas Giolito ChW 799 ------------------3. Zack Wheeler Phi 65 ------------------------------------------------3. Robbie Ray Ari 65 WHIP AL---------------------------------------------NL 1. Justin Verlander Hou 0.68 --------------1. German Marquez Col 0.84 2. Charlie Morton TB 0.85----------------- 2. Jack Flaherty StL 0.93 3. Jake Odorizzi Min 0.89 -----------------3. Jon Gray Col 0.94 Max Kepler is still leading the AL in home runs with 10, tied with Bregman. Not shown is that Mitch Garver and Miguel Sano are two of the eight players tied for third with 8 home runs. Garver is just on a terror right now, third in the AL in OPS is crazy good. And it doesn't show but the Twins pitching has been outstanding. Jake Odorizzi is third in WHIP in the AL, Kenta Maeda is fourth. Odorizzi, Maeda and Jose Berrios show up multiple times in the top 10 and Rogers is third in the AL in saves. All league leader stats here: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/LeagueLeaders.aspx?OrgID=116202&League=0&Report=0&GameType=0 MINNESOTA TEAM STATS Runs 190 (2nd) ------------Hits 288 (4th) ---------Doubles 68 (2nd) -------Triples 9 (4th) Home Runs 46 (3rd) ------RBI 182 (2nd) ---------BB 150 (1st) -------------Strike Outs 292 (6th)---SB 2 (T11th) Average .264 (7th) --------OBP .360 (1st) ------- SLG .469 (3rd) ---------- OPS .829 (2nd) Wins 23 (2nd)------------Saves 9 (4thT) ---------Hits allowed 232 (T 1st)-------- Runs allowed 105 (1st) HRs Allowed 28 (2nd)---Walks 84 (3rd)----------Strike Outs 326 (5th)----------- BAA .217 (2nd) WHIP 1.13 (T 1st)------- ERA 2.93 (1st) Team stats have stayed pretty consistent to what they were 15 days ago. We have done slightly better in the rankings this time around. I love we moved up to 1st and 2nd in OBP and OPS on offense. And 1st in both WHIP and ERA pitching. All team stats here: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/LeagueStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&Report=0&League=0&GameType=0&Splits=0 MINNESOTA INDIVIDUAL STATS Batting Mitch Garver .300/.435/.630-----1.065 OPS-------Leads team in Walks (22), AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS Miguel Sano .254/.359/.533------ .898 ------------Leads team in Ks (48) Max Kepler .238/.336/.516. -------.851 ------------Leads team in AB (126), HR (10), RBI (34) Nelson Cruz .277/.377/.473 ------.850 Jorge Polanco .298/.375/.463.---.838--------------Leads team in H (36), Josh Donaldson .261/.388/.417- .806 Byron Buxton .280/.341/.449---- .790--------------Leads team in R (25), 2b (11), 3b (3) Luis Arraez .326/.333/.453--------.787------------Not enough PA to qualify, but close Eddie Rosario. .208/.265/.403--- .688----------- Not enough PA to qualify, but close Pitching Starters Jose Berrios. 3-3 ----------- 53.2 IP----- 68/16 K/BB----1.25 WHIP------4.36 ERA------.673 OPS Against Jake Odorizzi 6-0 -----------56.0 --------72/15 -----------0.89 ------------2.09 -----------.526 Kenta Maeda 3-1------------39.1--------45/10------------0.92-------------2.29-----------.562 Homer Bailey 3-2------------36.1---------31/14-----------1.13-------------2.48------------.591 Jhoulys Chacin 0-0-----------6.2---------8/3--------------2.10-------------9.45-----------1.339 Relievers Taylor Rogers 2-1, 7 SV -----15.0 IP------24/5 K/BB------1.07 WHIP-----0.60 ERA-----.544 OPS Against Tyler Clippard 1-0, 0----------5.1----------6/0--------------0.38------------0.00-----------.311 Sergio Romo 1-0, 2----------16.1---------19/7-------------1.41------------1.10-----------.651 Randy Dobnak 3-1, 0--------25.0---------19/3-------------1.00------------1.44-----------.618 Tyler Duffey 1-0, 0------------8.2----------13/5-------------1.85------------4.15-----------.723 Trevor May 0-0, 0------------11.0---------17/4-------------1.64------------9.82-----------.942 Zack Littell 0-0, 0-------------6.2----------4/2--------------1.20------------2.70-----------.656 When you look at all the individual stats you really see how well the twins are batting. Garver is off the hook good. Buxton who is the worst of the qualifying batters for OPS still has a .790 OPS which is not too shabby. That is better than like all the Tigers players. That every batter is around .800 or better is amazing. The starting pitcher is great. Odorizzi is an early Cy Young candidate. Homer has turned things around the second half the month. Berrios had a rough end of April but there is plenty of season left. Dobnak did great in his two spot starts for Chacin. Pineda is 8 games away from having his suspension lifted and will jump in for Chacin who will be demoted down to the minor leagues. The relief pitching has been great overall. May is still struggling but did a little better as of late. Clippard, Dobnak, Romo and Rogers are taking most of the work on and they are absolutely crushing it. Throw in Littell and Clippard and this is a stellar bullpen. Individual Twins player stats here: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 31, 4-29-20 Minnesota is going for the short 2 game series win vs LA today. Jose Berrios (3-2) is up against Julio Urias (1-0). Game highlights below: Top of the 2nd - The Twins looked good this inning. Garver walked after Donaldson grounded out. Cave got a single moving Garver to 2nd. Adrianza struck out. But Polanco hit a single to center unfortunately leaving Garver at 3rd. 2 outs, bases loaded and Jose Berrios is at the plate. He actually connected with the ball but grounded into a 6-4 fielders choice to end the inning. Bottom of the 2nd - Berrios struck out all three batters in the first inning, but Baldelli wished he had a crystal ball when Berrios was up with the bases loaded right before this, as he would have yanked him from the game. Here is what happened. Bellinger and Seager singled putting men on the corners. Betts plated Bellinger with a single. Enrique Hernandez struck out. Will Smith singled, knocking in Seager. Betts made it to third under the throw, and Smith moved to second on the throw. Pitcher Julio Urias doubled to left center scoring both men on base. Jon Pederson doubled scoring Urias. Muncy and Turner struck out to end the awful inning. Definitely Berrios' worst inning of the year. Dodgers lead 5-0 Bottom of the 3rd - Zack Littell comes in for Berrios after 2 innings. 5 runs given up, but he did manage to strike out all 6 of the outs he got...so that's something. With Kepler injured, Rosario is getting more regular reps in the outfield instead of platooning with Cave, and he has been a bit rusty. Bellinger started the inning out getting on base with a Rosario dropped ball error. Luckily Seager hit into a 4-6-3 double play. Then Littell got the next out. Dodgers lead 5-0 Bottom of the 4th - Littell started then inning by walking Hernandez. 2 batters later, the pitcher, Urias, now confident after his double in the 2nd, cockily struts up to the plate...and he hits another double knocking in Hernandez this time. That's his 3rd RBI of the game. Littell got out with no further damage. Dodgers lead 6-0 Bottom of the 5th - Little is still on the mound for the Twins in this current blow out. After getting a double play on the second batter of the inning, Seager singled, and then Betts doubled scoring Seager. Dodgers lead 7-0 Top of the 8th - The Dodgers have limited the Twins to three batters in 6 out of 7 innings. Adrianza started the 8th with a single. Urias left the blow out throwing a really good game. No need to push anything and risk injury. Adam Kolarek relieved him. Polanco flied out. Nelson Cruz who is on the bench since it is an NL game, pinch hit for Marwin and got a single. Buxton doubled, moving his total to 11 on the season. That scored both Adrianza and Cruz. Rosario struck out. Next Sano hit his 8th home run of the season, putting the twins down by three. Donaldson grounded out to end the inning. Dodgers lead 7-4 Top of the 9th - Kenley Jansen came in to close this one out for the Dodgers. Do the Twins have anything left inside them against this top closer? The answer was a simple nope. Avila got on base with a walk, but Jansen got three strike outs with 2 looking to end the game. Dodgers win 7-4 This game was a bit of a dud. Berrios was terrible with a 31 game score. The Twins were 3-6 with runners in scoring position, but those were just half the hits we got the whole game batting .188 for the day. But splitting the series in Los Angeles is encouraging. The first game we played extremely well and this could be a team we face if we make it to the World Series. I know, that is way too far away...but can't a man dream?! https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=a90d2e1e29c045d7be10dac855672e81&ReportType=1 Twins 23-8 _ Tied for first with the Indians Other League News *Where are they now?-Brian Dozier edition. He is with San Diego (13-17) and just hit his 6th home run of the season. However, there is a big BUT...but he is only batting .192 the first month of the season. *Boston (13-20) only let Toronto's (12-19) Chase Anderson get through one inning pitching before he was bounced giving up 5 runs. However, Toronto clawed their way back for a one run win. I don't know if Boston thought this would be a complete rebuilding year, but after the first month it looks like it may be. *Detroit (5-25) is abysmal this year, they just lost to the Yankees (17-15) 12-2. The Tigers are being outscored on average by 3.5 runs per game!! The top qualifying batter for OPS is Harold Castro at .724. No starter has an ERA under 5.00 or an OPS against below .790. Ouch!!! This train wreck will be fun to follow throughout the year. *Yoan Moncada of the White Sox is out for 1 week, and David Dahl of the Rockies is out for 2 weeks. *HOME RUN watch: Aristedes Aquino has now hit his 17th home run for Cincinnati (16-14) in 30 games. That is more than 1 every two games right now. *CLEVELAND watch: Shane Bieber had a bad start and got his first loss of the season. Cleveland has now lost 3 straight, and despite the loss to the Dodgers today, the Twins are still tied for first TWINS PLAYER STATS & MORE https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

Strong start, but I don't think they can keep this up for the whole season. My guess is the Dodgers will end on top after all is said and done. I'm hoping for a Twins World Series if we stay away from any massive injury bugs.

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION The Twins have won 6 straight and just dominating as of late, but we have a very tough 2 game series here in LA vs the Dodgers. Jake Odorizzi (5-0) is going up against Clayton Kershaw (4-2) someone the Twins were hoping to miss when they first saw the game on their schedule. Both pitchers are coming in with sub 3.00 ERAs. Game highlights are below: Top of the 4th - After 3 full innings with no base hits in the game, the Twins finally made something happen. Not a ton, but we'll take it! Josh Donaldson snuck one over the left field fence. That was the only person that got on base. But a home run is sure a lot nicer than a single or more walks. Twins lead 1-0 Top of the 5th - The Twins got a couple more singles. Luckily the first one was by the speedster Buxton. He scored from first on Kepler's single. Twins lead 2-0 Bottom of the 5th - Odorizzi walked Mookie Betts, only the second batter he has let on base so far. The next batter Austin Barnes hit one toward Kepler who went down in a crumple. Betts scored on the Barnes double. Kepler who started out the season so amazingly hot, but has been in a bit of a slump just got injured for a week...maybe it will be a good time for him to settle back in to his first-couple-weeks-of-the-season-self. Rosario who was on the bench came in to the game to replace Kepler. Twins lead 2-1 Bottom of the 6th - Odorizzi's second hit of the game was to Justin Turner, a solo home run. Game tied 2-2 Top of the 8th - With 2 outs, Mitch Garver bounced Kershaw from the game with a solo home run. Garver's second solo blast of the night and eighth of the season. Kenley Jansen replaces Kershaw, smacks Cave with a pitch but gets Adrianza swinging to end the top half of the 8th. Twins lead 3-2 Bottom of the 9th - Neither the Dodgers or Twins could get anything done in their next half innings. In the bottom of the 9th, Taylor Rogers came in for the save attempt clinging to a 1 run lead and a couple guys you just don't want to see in this situation...that is actually like the whole Dodgers lineup. First up was Bellinger and he went down swinging. Next up was Corey Seager who watched strike 3 sail by him. A.J. Pollock came up to pinch hit for Matt Beaty with the game on the line. And oh man did he connect with that ball. He hit a super deep drive to center field, luckily the wind wasn't blowing out and it sat down at the last minute. TWINS WIN 3-2 What a huge win. We've been winning a ton recently but have had a pretty easy part of our schedule. This was a true test against the Dodgers, and Kershaw in LA and we just aced it. Kershaw unusually threw a lot of walks, but overall pitched a good game and got the quality start loss. He was out pitched by the Twins April MVP Jake Odorizzi (He is 6-0 with a 2.09 ERA!!) who threw a 75 game score for the evening. Garver lit it up with 2 homers grabbing both the Twins' RBI for the day. That was what the Twins needed. If Odorizzi pitched like his April version of himself, to stay in this game against Kershaw they'd need some home runs and Garver provided them. Garver has a 1.091 OPS for the season thus far. Taylor Rogers pitched a great 9th getting his 7th save of the season. Even with Kepler out for a week this team is looking good for the rest of this LA trip. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=773b055fb3a748609881406c89429255&ReportType=1 TWINS 23-7 _ tied for first with the Indians Other League News *The big Twins news is that the Indians lost giving the Twins a share of the AL Central. The Indians (24-8) have been winning by the skin of their teeth in a lot of these games, against good and not so good teams. Today with Adam Plutko pitching they just couldn't hold up against a hot Rays team (21-10). I believe this is the first time this season they have lost 2 straight games. *I haven't been saying Trout's name too often this season, maybe because he is on an underwhelming Angels team again, but he has quietly hit 8 home runs. *What's better than hitting for the cycle? Getting two home runs instead of that elusive triple. Yuli Gurriel did that in his effort giving the Astros (18-11) the win over the D-Backs (13-16). *Scott Heienman of the Rangers got injured for 2 months. *I just mentioned in my last post about how poorly Ivan Nova has been for the Tigers (5-24) this season. Today his line was 1 IP, 4 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 1K, 9 Batters Faced versus the Yankees who obviously got the win (16-14). Nova's ERA is up to 8.10 with an 0-6 record. Twins Player Stats & More https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

​TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Who knew you could get so busy and exhausted during a quarantine? I guess that is what happens when you stay home with a 6 month old and 3 year old by yourself all day while your spouse is on the front line. Anyways I'm way behind, so I will do a less structured recap for the last two games of the 4 game Seattle series, and the whole Boston at Minnesota series. Game 25, 4-22-20 Minnesota just blanked Seattle their last game and was hoping to do so again today. This game put up Justin Dunn (1-1) v. Jake Odorizzi (4-0). No hits or walks for the first 1.5 innings, but in the bottom of the second, Donaldson got a single, Sano walked, and Rosario knocked in a run with a single before the side was retired. In the bottom of the third Nelson Cruz hit a 2 man home run. He has finally started to get hot. Odorizzi hit Austin Nola in the top of the 4th and then gave up his first hit of the game, an RBI double to Daniel Vogelbach, making the game 3-1 Twins. In the 5th Arraez got a double, this guy has been amazing this season. Polanco hit him in with a single. Twins 4-1. In the 7th things really unraveled for the Mariners. Austin Adams pitching and Buxton walked, he then stole 2nd, and got to third on a passed ball. Arraez knocked him in with a single. Then Polanco followed up Arraez with a home run. That was it. Twins win 7-1. Polanco has been great, he went 2 for 4 with a HR, and brought his average over .300 now. Arraez continues to hit for average. And Cruz is up to 4 home runs. He had a horrific start to the season so it is nice seeing him getting his average north of .250 with some power. Odorizzi has been cy young worthy to start the season. He is now 5-0 with a 2.06 ERA. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=2f07d5f8ecee4a2f8c1bd8306bc389cc&ReportType=1 Twins 18-7 _ 2nd place, 2.5 games behind Cleveland Game 26, 4-23-20 Kenta Maeda (3-1) is up against Yusei Kikuchi (0-2) trying to get the Twins the series win. Miguel Sano started the game out with a solo blast. His 7th of the season. In the Top of the 3rd, Maeda gave up 3 singles, a stolen base and a walk...and also 2 runs. Seattle is leading 2-1. 15 of the next 16 batters did not get on base. In the top of the 6th Vogelbach is at it again for Seattle hitting a solo home run and Shed Long followed it up with an RBI single. Seattle leads 4-1. The Twins finally get some life in them in the bottom of the 7th. Cave singled to start the inning. Adrianza got hit by a pitch. Polanco grounded into a fielders choice putting men on the corners. Buxton singled making it a 2 run game and sending Kikuchi to the showers. Tuivailala came in to pitch. Kepler immediately hit an RBI single. Sano walked and Donaldson got hit by the 2nd pitch this inning which incidentally scored the tying run! Game tied 4-4. In the top of the 8th, Kyle Seager hit a home run off Trevor May. Seattle leads 5-4. In the bottom of the 9th, Kepler struck out and Sano flied out. Nelson Cruz got a double passed the rangey Mallex Smith. Right after that Donaldson hit a drive over Mitch Haniger's head to tie the game with a double. Garver and Cave both walked to load the bases for Arraez with 2 outs. Arraez, the best hitting Twins player hit a sharp liner, but unfortunately it was hit to Mallex Smith again, and this time he wasn't going to let it get past him. Game tied 5-5 and going to extra innings. Rogers gave up a lead off single to Vogelbach but then got the next three batters to strike out. After Polanco and Kepler walked to start out the bottom of the 10th, Sano hit a one out walk off single. Twins Win 6-5 in extra innings. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=8d4b2a17ad5c4fa2bfdddab84e01214a&ReportType=1 Twins 19-7_2nd place, 2.5 games behind Cleveland Game 27, 4-24-20 Boston is off to a slow start this year (11-17). The opener of the series had Homer Bailey (2-2) going up against Twins cast off Martin Perez (3-2) back in Minnesota. The Twins got on the board early with a heck of a 2nd inning just eating away at Perez. It went: Donaldson, Garver singles, Cave K, Adrianza BB, Polanco RBI single, Buxton sacrifice fly, Kepler BB, Sano K. Twins lead 2-0. In the bottom of the 5th Cruz followed up Sano's double with a Home Run, #5 of the season. Twins lead 4-0. A few more walks, a double and a single in the 6th put the Twins up 7-0. At that point this game was over. Twins ended up winning a blow out 11-1. Cruz was the player of the game going 2-5, a hr, 4 RBI and a BB. Homer Bailey got his third win. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=b49cd2c2fbe9491599e65fe27775cb1c&ReportType=1 Twins 20-7 _ 2nd place, 2.5 games behind Cleveland Game 28, 4-25-20 Game 2 of the Boston series has Berrios (3-2) going up against Eovaldi (1-1). Berrios is having an average start to the year, and this one did not go well to start. I mean it could have been a lot worse, but triple, double, double is not the way you ever want to start a game. Sox up 2-0 in the first. In the top of the 4th Berrios gave up 2 more extra base hits, HRs to J.D. Martinez and Jackie Bradley Jr. Sox up 5-0. After three great innings, Eovaldi just seemed to run out of juice in the bottom of the 4th. He gave up a double, 4 singles and a walk, throw in a wild pitch to boot, and let the Twins go through the whole line up. That is what gets you yanked from a game quickly. He did not come back for the 5th inning...neither did Berrios. Sox lead 5-3. In the bottom of the 5th Arraez hit his second double of the game and Cruz knocked him in. Sox lead 5-4. Twins are slowly crawling back in this one. In the top of the 9th, with Romo pitching, Benintendi gave the Red Sox the insurance run they needed with a sacrifice fly bringing in Chavis with the bases loaded. Luckly Romo got Devers to strike out next to limit too much damage. Sox lead 6-4. Brandon Workman is pitching for the Sox in the bottom of the 9th. Adrianza came in to pinch hit for Buxton. He ripped a triple to center field. Kepler grounded out and they kept Adrianza at third. Arraez singled, scoring Adrianza. Twins down 1 run with 2 outs remaining. Polanco got the 2nd triple this inning to tie the game. The Twins unfortunately couldn't get him in before the final two outs. Extra innings again. It didn't take long for this game to end though. Duffey made quick work of the Red Sox in the top of the 10th. After blowing the save for the Sox in the ninth, Workman stayed in for the tenth. Bad mistake for Boston. Sano walked. Rosario hit a double which could have won the game if it wasn't Sano on first. Adrianza walked. Kepler was the hero of the game due to his good eye. He walked and the winning run strolled home. Twins win 7-6 in extra innings. And guess what? Cleveland finally lost a game!!! https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=bfbbcd659f0849569f2573885a41cea1&ReportType=1 Twins 21-7 _ 2nd place, 1.5 games behind Cleveland Game 29, 4-26-20 The Twins are going for the sweep, their 6th win in a row, and 9 out of their last 10. Let's see if they can do it. Randy Dobnak (2-1) gets the start against Andrew Cashner (1-2). Dobnak got out of a jam with runners on 2nd and 3rd to save the 2nd inning from harm. Cruz started out the bottom of the 2nd with a single, and 2 batters later Garver launched his 6th HR of the season giving the Twins a 2-0 lead. The bottom of the third started with Kepler getting walked. Arraez hit a single to Yairo Munoz in right but Kepler got thrown out going to third. Kepler who was dominating the home run race early in the season has gone as cold as can be. Luckily the rest of the team is on fire. Polanco singled sending Arraez to third. Cruz singled scoring Arraez. Then a passed ball scored Cruz. Twins lead 4-0. May relieved Dobnak after 6.2 innings. Dobnak pitched a wonderful game. In the top of the 8th, May gave up a single to Devers, followed by a 411 ft bomb by Moreland. Twins lead 4-2. May is still struggling with a 12.00 ERA. The Twins could not get anything across in the bottom of the 8th. Rogers came in to close out the game in the 9th. He gave up a quick triple to pinch hitting Alex Verdugo. After a ground out, he gave up a double to Benintendi. Tying run is on 2nd with 1 out. Devers grounded out but moved Benintendi to third. Moreland was back up after his previous home run. He is the go ahead run. Rogers got him swinging to end the game. Twins win 4-3. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=5a7e2bd7085449b69742ae5706ca5bfe&ReportType=1 Twins 22-7 _ 2nd place, 1.5 behind Cleveland. We are the second best team in all of baseball at this point. 4-27-20 The Twins get a rest day hoping to carry their momentum to LA where they have a tough 2 game set versus the Dodgers and follow it up with a series against Mike Trout and the Angels. While we keep winning, so does Cleveland making it frustrating to say the least. However Cleveland did lose 1-0 to Tampa Bay today, so the Twins are just back 1 game!!! Other League News Despite the Nationals being 14-9 the last game Scherzer pitched, and Scherzer has a 3.30 ERA, the team is struggling when he is on the mound. His record is a pedestrian 3-3. Not that he is an amazing pitcher but Ivan Nova of Detroit is currently sitting at an 0-5 record with a 6.68 ERA getting bounced from his last start after 3 innings. Nate Pearson of the Blue Jays got his 2nd win of the season with a 15K performance. Manny Machado had a 3 HR game vs. the Cubs. At the time of that game it brought his total up to 9 for the season. The Giants suffered a couple big losses in Longoria and Tyler Rogers for about a week a piece. Bregman's 9th home run of the season was a grand slam that helped Houston beat a strong Tampa Bay team. Jack Flaherty of St. Louis is killing the early part of the season. He is 5-1 with a stellar 1.79 ERA. I don't really know who it is but Reyes Moronta is out for 2 months for San Francisco...It's a big injury so I feel the need to report it. It is San Fran's 4th injury in these handful of games I'm covering in this post. Ryon Healy is out for a month for Milwaukee, the injury was the same game they lost to Colorado on a game tying double followed by a walk off triple. After pitching a complete game win for Houston, Velanlder is up to 6-1 with a 1.85 ERA. Howie Kendrick hit his surprising 10th home run, right near the top of the leader board. Keston Hiura hit 4 home runs over the past 6 games for Milwaukee. This last game Milwaukee gave up 6 runs in the bottom of the 9th to Colorado, almost blowing a 7 run lead. Aristides Aquino hit his MLB leading 14th HR for Cincinnati. Chris Archer of Pittsburgh got sidelined for 59 days. He was struggling with an 8.28 ERA. Glasnow of TB (20-10) figured out a way to shut down Cleveland (24-7). He pitched a complete game, 3 hit, 0 walk, 9 strike out shut out of the best team in baseball at this point. Thank you says all the Twins fans!!!! Twins Player Stats & More https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

I whole heartedly agree. Don't know what was going on here. Game 24 has more of the same where they kept in Romo for a second inning instead of bringing in Rogers in a 2 run game.

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 24, 4-21-20 Coming off a tough loss to Seattle at home the Twins wanted to rectify that in game 2. Chacin (0-0) Vs. Marco Gonzalez (3-2). Game highlights below: Bottom of the 2nd - Donaldson hit a single. Garver got on base due to an error by Marco Gonzalez. Jake Cave came up big with a huge double to right field scoring Donaldson. Adrianza walked. Then Polanco hit into a double play, one of what seems like a very small handful this year for the Twins. Twins lead 1-0 Bottom of the 3rd - No runs for the Twins but Kepler keeps crushing, with a well hit double. His slugging percentage is at an outstanding .608 Twins lead 1-0 Top of the 4th - Chacin, who is having a rough season, had been cruising through the first three innings. In the 4th he found himself in a bit of trouble. Dee Gordon led off with a single. Vogelbach got walked after Gordon stole 2nd. Then J.P. Crawford got hit by a pitch. Bases loaded with no outs. Bullpen is warming up. Chacin gets Haniger to ground back to him where he forced out Gordon at home. Then he induced Seager to hit into a 4-6-3 double play to get out of that nasty jam. Twins lead 1-0 Bottom of the 4th - A wild pitch got Donaldson into scoring position after his lead off single. Next batter Kepler knocked him in with a single. The Twins then got the bases loaded. Buxton hit a deep fly ball to Mallex Smith who threw a perfect throw to get Garver tagging up at home. Twins lead 2-0 Top of the 5th - Dylan Moore was the first batter for Seattle, before Chacin could get through Moore's at bat he got injured and had to leave the game. Clippard came in for Chacin and struck out the side. Chacin is out for 3 weeks and the Twins called up Matt Wisler. It is unknown if they will go with Dobnak or Wisler with the 5th rotation spot. Twins lead 2-0 Top of the 8th - Clippard pitched great in his emergency appearance. The only time he got slightly in trouble, he got Seager to hit into his second 4-6-3 double play of the game. Romo came in with two outs in the eighth and almost blew it, giving up a double when a man was on first, and then a walk. He got the next batter out having Seattle leave the bases loaded in a clutch situation. Twins lead 2-0 9th inning - In the top of the 9th, Sano led things off with a double but that was all the Twins could muster and they could not pad their lead with more production this inning. Romo stayed in for the 9th. Rogers must be in the dog house with Baldelli or Wes Johnson despite giving up 0 earned runs in 10.1 innings, as the staff has had a couple questionable late game pitching calls recently. J.P. Crawford started it out with a single for the Mariners. But then Romo got the next three batters, K, Foul out to 1st, and another K for his second save on the season. TWINS WIN 2-0 Marco Gonzalez got the tough loss for the Mariners as he really stymied the Twins this game. A couple hits here and there did him in. Chacin, who has been a mess this season, actually looked great here - 4 IP, 2 H, 3 K. It's too bad he is out for three weeks as I'd love to see if he turned it around his next few starts. By the time Chacin recovers, Pineda will be back taking his roster spot. Tyler Clippard got his 1st win of the season. He struck out 6 of the 12 batters he faced. It was a pretty ho-hum game, but nice to see the Twins bounce back with a shut out win. Minnesota 17-7 _ 2nd place, 2.5 games behind Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=dfcb33a768754291b9481f2ee5e67bb3&ReportType=1 Other League News Astros shortstop Aledmys Diaz is also out for three weeks. Cubs catcher Wilson Contreras is out for two weeks. Josh Phegley replaced Contreras and hit a home run for the Cubbies (15-8) who got the win. The Braves (13-12) and Diamondbacks (11-12) were locked up in a tight game. In the 7th inning the Braves Travis d'Arnaud knocked in the tying run on an error, and in the bottom of the 9th he knocked in the winning run with a walk off single. The Phillies (16-8) took down the struggling Rangers (6-17) in a walk-off as well. This one was a little more exciting though as Jay Bruce hit the game winning solo home run. Indians watch: They won again (20-5) destroying Oakland (14-10). They seem to win every day we do. The Pirates won (9-14)...nothing exciting to report in the game, but I did just watch the Dock Ellis documentary, "No No: A Dockumentary" today on Amazon Prime...it's a super good baseball documentary and I I highly recommend it! Twins Player Stats & More https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 23, 4-20-20 The Twins just turned around their early season by winning 9 straight games (16-6). Today, they get the Seattle Mariners (7-16) at home, hopefully bringing the win streak to 10 games. Today's game will pit Berrios (3-1) vs. Justus Sheffield (0-3). Game highlights below: Top of the 3rd - Through the first two innings there has barely been any offensive action. Garver hit a single. That was it. To start the third, Tom Murphy and Mallex Smith both narrowly squeezed a hit by Ehire Adrianza who just missed ranging both of them. Mallex stole 2nd and then Garneau scored Murphy on a single. Seattle Leads 1-0 Bottom of the 6th - Still no one wanted to hit. From the top of the third through the bottom of 6th there were a total of 2 singles. Kepler walked up to bat here with one out and took Sheffield deep. Like way deep. Like 460 ft deep. Game tied 1-1 Bottom of the 8th - Sam Tuivailala was pitching at this point for Seattle. He walked Adrianza in the lead off position. Polanco hit a single to Mallex Smith in CF, and he laced one to third to nail Adrianza on a close play...Polanco moved to second on the throw. The Twins decided to get their best OBP player up, so they subbed out Buxton who had been hitting around .300 all season for Arraez. Arraez snuck one by Carlos Gonzalez in right for a triple tying up the game. Kepler walked to put men on the corners. Sano smoked one directly to short, and was lucky nobody got doubled off, then Nelson Cruz struck out leaving Arraez on third. It is nice having the lead with the unfaliable Rogers coming in for the close. Twins lead 2-1 Top of the 9th - Baldelli decided to keep the hot hand of Berrios in the game instead of Rogers. Dan Vogelbach lead off with a double. With one out Haniger walked. With two outs and the game all but over, Dylan Moore hit a double. Vogelbach easily scored, Haniger got in from first as well. Seattle takes the lead. Why wasn't Rogers put in?!! Romo came in for the last out and got it easily. Seattle leads 3-2 Bottom of the 9th - The Twins need one but want two!! Tuivailala was kept in despite blowing the game in the bottom of the 8th. He got Donaldson swinging, and Garver to ground out. Jake Cave walked, bringing the winning run to the plate. Adrianza strolled up to the plate, and crushed a sinking liner to CarGo, who just gave up the lead with some poor defense in the bottom of the 8th. This time he made a remarkable catch ending the game Seattle Wins 3-2 Tough loss for the Twins who really wanted to get a 10 game winning streak. Kepler is continuing to just kill it out there. Today he went 2-3 and hit his 10th homer still leading the AL. Berrios (3-2) got a tough loss. He almost pitched a complete game but blew it late on questionable managing by Baldelli. Berrios left the game with a very respectable 75 game score. Hopefully the Twins can make up tomorrow for a game that they lost themselves here today. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=7c7fbe5a4dfb49399c329f77e76bf23d&ReportType=1 Minnesota 16-7_2nd Place, 2.5 behind Cleveland Other League News The White Sox (11-12) rallied behind Lucas Giolito to beat Kansas City (11-11). He threw 16 strikeouts and got a 98 game score. Giolito needed that game as he was 2-2 with a 4.00+ era going into the game. The Orioles (10-12) only gave up 3 hits to the Angels (11-11) but still lost. Both runs the Angels scored were unearned as the Orioles had 3 defensive errors in the game. The Tampa Bay (15-8) v. Houston (13-9) game had no runs scored from the 4th inning through the 13th inning. Tampa finally broke it open in the 14th for the win. The game produced one crazy stat line for Justin Verlander. 13.1 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 21 Ks. 21Ks!!! Yes it was extra innings, but who pitches 13.1 innings anymore?!! The strangest part, Verlander got the LOSS. he gave up a double to start off the 14th. Urquidy pitched horrible in relief, but the lead runner was Verlander's so he grabs the loss with a game score of 102. Gerrit Cole had what seems like a pedestrian 18 Ks. His was in a more traditional 9 IP in NY's (12-11) win over Detroit (4-18). Cleveland Indians watch: They lost today in spectacular fashion (19-5). Brad Hand gave up a walk to J.D. Martinez in the bottom of the 9th. Then he gave up an RBI triple to Pearaza putting Boston down a run. He followed up the triple by throwing a melon to Michael Chavis who clocked it over the fence for the game winning walk-off for Boston (11-13)

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION The Twins (13-6) are riding high on a 6 game winning streak as we head into a home series with Detroit (4-14). There is a good chance this streak will continue, and is asking for a third straight sweep too much? Did I just jinx us? Let's find out. I'm 3 games behind so I'm going to forgo my usual inning by inning highlight recap and just give a more general synopsis to catch me up to the correct day! Game 20, 4-17-20 Odorizzi (3-0) has been a stud this season and he is facing off against Matt Boyd (2-1) who at this point of the season has half of Detroit's wins. Odorizzi started out the game looking like he may get a 1-2-3 inning, but after a single and a home run to JaCoby Jones and then a Jonathan Schoop double, Detroit had Minnesota scratching their heads wondering what just happened. Odorizzi got out just giving up the 2 runs. But Sano wasn't going to let Detroit take a 1st inning lead if it was up to him, that has been the Twins MO these past couple series. Sano shot a solo blast. Unfortunately nobody helped him out. Tigers lead 2-1 after 1 inning. Christin Stewart hit the Tigers 2nd home run to start the 2nd inning. The Twins were fed up. Garver started out with a double, Boyd got 2 Ks, and then the Twins went single, triple, single for Polanco, Buxton and Kepler. Twins lead 4-3 after 2nd inning. Nick Ramirez came in for Boyd after he couldn't get the first two batters out in the 5th. It didn't help. Twins scored 3, capped by a Polanco 2 RBI double in which Cave got thrown out at home on an exciting play. Twins lead 6-3 after 5 innings. The Twins added one more run late on an error and that is it. The biggest game highlight was Odorizzi pitched lights out after the first couple hrs he gave up early, getting a complete game win with 14 Ks. (4-0, 2.29 ERA) Twins 14-6 _ 2nd Place, 3.5 behind Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=3b2d052aa957490a9b801af8c9609365&ReportType=1 Other League News Former Twin, Danny Santana who I was happy to catch play back in the day with Sano in AA New Britain, is having a huge start for the Rangers (6-14). While the team is struggling a lot, he jut hit his 7th HR in game 2 of their double header and is hitting .325. Milwaukee (8-12) beat the Mets (8-12) in 15 innings. After Milwaukee went through 5 pitchers, Jay Jackson came in and got stuck in there for 5.1 innings. He gave up only 1 hit and had 10 Ks out of the bullpen. Cleveland (18-3) keeps winning. They needed 11 innings today and Franmil Reyes hit two home runs including what would be the game winner in the 11th. Cincinnati's catcher Kyle Farmer is out for 3 weeks. Game 21, 4-18-20 Game 2 of the series featured Kenta Maeda (2-1) vs. Jordan Zimmermann (0-1). This game featured more of the same. Twins getting a big win. Kenta Maeda's line didn't look great today due to a Sano error costing the Twins 3 unforced runs to cross the plate. However he got 11 K's in 5.2 innings of work. The down side of the Twins young season has been Trevor May. He came in for 1 inning of work and faced 9 batters giving up 4 earned runs. May's ERA has now ballooned to 16.20. I'm putting this up to small sample size, he is too good to be this bad for a big chunk of the season. 5 Twins batters had a multi-hit game today. Kepler, Arraez, Polanco, Donaldson and Garver. Kepler hit his league leading 9th home run later in the game, while Polanco got things rolling early with 2 home runs off Jordan Zimmermann to start the game. He is up to 3 HRs on the season now. Tigers went 6-13 with runners in scoring position and still couldn't pull off the win, as Rogers came in for his 5th save of the season. Twins Win 10-8 Minnesota 15-6 _ 2nd place, 2 back of Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=f554243b93ea41f0a8acf77dc9216cf4&ReportType=1 Other League News Oakland (13-9) lost Luzardo to injury during the game before he even finished pitching to the first batter. He was checked out and after the game, the A's reported he will be ready to go immediately, and you will see him on the mound in 5 games. More pressing was that Piscotty also got injured during the game and while not horrible, he is out for 2 weeks. Jorge Soler had 3 home runs and 7 RBI in Kansas City's (11-9) win over Baltimore (9-11). Game 22, 4-19-20 Twins are going for the sweep. Their third in a row. Homer Bailey (1-2) is up against Spencer Turnbull (0-2). Nobody could really get much done the first couple innings and then in the third the Twins got a run across the plate in a fairly cheap way. Kepler and Polanco both singled, but Polanco eventually scored on a Turnbull wild pitch. Cheap yes, but a run is a run is a run. Twins lead 1-0. The wheels fell off for Turnbull in the bottom of the 4th. Garver started the 4th getting hit by a pitch, Sano walked, Rosario doubled, Buxton doubled, Kepler singled, all before Arraez got the first out whiffing on three. But three runs already scored. Tyler Alexander came in for Turnbull and Alexander gave up a 2 RBI double to Donaldson as well. Twins lead 7-0. Things were calm offensively for both teams for a couple innings. In the bottom of the 6th Polanco hit a 1 out RBI single. Cruz singled and Donaldson got hit by a pitch before Garver lined out. Out number 2 of the inning. This is when Sano casually walked up to the plate and hit the third team grand slam of the young season. The Twins already have more grand slams this season in 22 games than they did in 162 games last year when they set a record in total home runs! Twins lead 12-0. Eddie Rosario added some last minute highlight film footage with an RBI double in the bottom of the 8th in which Garver got nailed at home trying to make it from first. And with that, that was the last hit of the game. Twins Win 13-0. Kepler did not get a HR today, but he did go 3-5. Sano went 2-4, with a BB, 2b, HR, 2 Runs and 4 RBI. But nobody's game was better than Homer Bailey. Bailey pitched a completely game shutout. Only 31 batters were faced as he gave up 4 hits, 0 walks and recorded 6 strike outs with a game score of 92 to get his second win of the season. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=00d281fb2e1a40ca9e43a476f0c6af0f&ReportType=1 Minnesota 16-6 _ 2nd place, 2.5 games behind Cleveland. Next up is a 4 game series with (7-16) Seattle at home. Looking good for the twins in this one. Let's see how it plays out over the next handful of days. Other League News Oakland's (14-9) Chris Bassitt only pitched to 3 batters before he got injured (out for 6 days). J.B. Wendelken came in and pitched the entire rest of the game only giving up 1 hit to Seattle. The Rangers who are already struggling at (6-16) lost Andrus for 9 days, but were dealt a major blow when they lost Joey Gallo for 2 months as well. He was having a great start to his season hitting 6 HRs and has an OPS of 1.026. Tough break for the guy in first place of the MLB Players league The Show thing that they are doing. Check that out, it's fun. Trevor May is funny to watch play. Anyways, back to the simulation, Baltimore (10-11) snuck past Kansas City (11-10) by the score of 5-4 in the battle of the two teams that are playing .500 ball and shouldn't be. Wilmer Difo got the walk-off single for the Nationals (13-7) over the Cubs (13-8). Difo was only brought in the game because Eric Thames got ejected in the first. Indians update: They won again, behind Bieber's complete game shutout (It wasn't as spectacular as Bailey's was today though!!!.) Twins Player Stats & More https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

Thank you. I got a bit behind again. So another 3 game update coming up at some point today.

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION The Twins have an off day on 4-16-20. I will give a half month update below with plenty of links. AL CENTRAL STANDINGS Cleveland 17-3 Minnesota 13-6 Kansas City 9-9 Chicago 7-11 Detroit 4-14 The Twins are 11-2 on the road. If we didn't go 2-4 in our first two home series we'd be right up there as the best team in the league thus far with Cleveland. Cleveland is starting out amazingly. They went 10-0 before the Twins gave them their first loss and have been 7-2 since then. Can't get much better than that, and that is why the Twins are 3.5 games behind them. The other AL division leaders are Tampa and Houston with Oakland and MN getting the wild card spots super early in the season. In the NL Philly, Chicago and Colorado are leading their divisions with the Dodgers and Washington taking the early Wild card positions. Link to the standings here: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/Standings.aspx?OrgID=116202 LEAGUE LEADERS Average AL-------------------------------------------NL 1. Alex Verdugo Bos .473 --------------- 1. Eric Sogard Mil .420 2. Jose Iglesias Bal .387 -----------------2. Howie Kendrick Wash .403 3. Tim Anderson CWS .378 --------------3. Eric Hosmer SD .383 OPS AL-------------------------------------------NL 1. Mike Trout LAA 1.234 -----------------1. Howie Kendrick Wash 1.226 2. Mitch Haniger Sea 1.200 -------------2. Andrew McCutchen Phi 1.163 3. Michael Brantley Hou 1.198 ----------3. Javier Baez ChC 1.110 HRs AL-------------------------------------------NL 1. Max Kepler Min 8---------------------- 1. Aristides Aquino Cin 11 2. Michael Brantley Hou 7 ----------------2. Javier Baez ChC 8 3. 7 players with 6 ------------------------3. Howie Kendrick Wash 7 ERA AL--------------------------------------------NL 1. Aaron Bummer ChW 0.00 --------------1. Stephen Strasburg Wash 0.38 2. Charlie Morton TB 1.23 -----------------2. Anthony DeSclafani Cin 1.63 3. John Means Bal 1.37 -------------------3. Mike Soroka Atl 1.67 Strikeouts AL--------------------------------------------NL 1. Gerrit Cole NYY 62---------------------- 1. Yu Darvish ChC .54 2. Jose Berrios Min 51 ---------------------1. Robbie Ray Ari 54 3. Justin Verlander Hou 49 -----------------3. Patrick Corbin Wash 50 3. Lucas Giolito ChW 49 -------------------3. Walker Buehler LAD 50 WHIP AL---------------------------------------------NL 1. Justin Verlander Hou 0.66 --------------1. Craig Stammen SD 0.71 2. Kenta Maeda Min 0.71------------------ 2. Stephen Strasburg Wash 0.75 3. Charlie Morton TB 0.82 -----------------3. Jon Gray Col 0.83 ------------------------------------------------3. Josh Tomlin Atl 0.83 Nice to see Kepler leading the league in HRs and Berrios and Maeda making appearances in the top 3 of big categories. All League Leader stats here: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/LeagueLeaders.aspx?OrgID=116202&League=0&Report=0&GameType=0 MINNESOTA TEAM STATS Runs 114 (4th) ------------Hits 173 (4th) ---------Doubles 41 (3rd) -------Triples 5 (3rd) Home Runs 31 (2nd) -----RBI 110 (4th) ---------BB 93 (1st) -------------Strike Outs 185 (9th)---SB (T11th) Average .254 (T 7th) -----OBP .352 (2nd)------- SLG .466 (3rd) ---------OPS .819 (3rd) Wins 13 (2nd)-----------Saves 5 (4thT) ---------Hits allowed 141 (2nd)----------Runs allowed 66 (2nd) HRs Allowed 19 (4th)---Walks 59 (7th)----------Strike Outs 209 (4th)----------- BAA .215 (2nd) WHIP 1.17 (2nd)-------- ERA 2.95 (2nd) Team stats overall are consistently in the top 4 in the AL in both batting and pitching. Great start to the season. Team stats here: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/LeagueStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&League=1&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0 MINNESOTA INDIVIDUAL STATS Batting Mitch Garver .286/.430/.619----1.049 OPS------ Leads team in Walks (15), OBP, SLG, OPS Nelson Cruz .286/.398/.500------ .898 ------------Leads team in Runs (16) Max Kepler .222/.320/.568. ------.887 ------------Leads team in AB (81), HR (8), RBI (25) Byron Buxton .307/.361/.493 -----.855 -----------Leads team in Hits (23), 2b (7), 3b (2), SB (1), AVG Josh Donaldson .254/.384/.465.- .849 Miguel Sano .257/.368/.473------ .841------------ Leads team in Ks (32) Jorge Polanco .243/.341/.351---- .693 Luis Arraez .283/.295/.383-------- .678 Eddie Rosario. .216/.273/.431---- .704----------- Not enough PA to qualify, but close Pitching Starters Jose Berrios. 3-1 ----------- 39.0 IP----- 51/14 K/BB----1.21 WHIP------3.00 ERA------.594 OPS Against Kenta Maeda. 2-1 -----------28.1 --------30/6 ------------0.71 ------------1.59 -----------.450 Jake Odorizzi 3-0------------30.2--------39/9------------1.08--------------2.05------------.566 Homer Bailey 1-2------------21.1---------22/10-----------1.27-------------4.22-------------.659 Jhoulys Chacin 0-0-----------2.2---------5/2--------------4.13-------------23.63-----------1.972 Relievers Taylor Rogers 1-1, 4 SV -----9.1 IP-------16/5 K/BB------0.96 WHIP-----0.00 ERA-----.427 OPS Against Tyler Clippard 0-0, 0---------0.2-----------0/0--------------1.50------------0.00-----------.667 Sergio Romo 1-0, 1----------12.1---------14/5-------------1.30------------0.73-----------.597 Randy Dobnak 2-1, 0--------17.0---------16/2-------------0.88------------2.12-----------.606 Tyler Duffey 0-0, 0-----------5.2-----------9/4--------------2.47-------------6.35----------.882 Trevor May 0-0, 0------------2.2----------5/2---------------1.75------------11.25---------1.017 Zack Littell - Has Not played 6 of our 8 qualified batters have an OPS over .800 which is awesome. 4 of our starters have an OPS against under .700 which is also awesome. Our three workhorse relievers so far, Rogers, Romo and Dobnak have a 46/12 K/BB ratio and all three have an ERA under 2.50. Overall, again, a great start to the season. Individual Twins player stats here: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 18 4-14-20 Sorry I got a little behind here. Life with a three year old and 6 month old with a continuous ear infection sometimes takes priority. Anyways the Twins are coming off a great blow out win in Toronto. Let's see what happens in game 2 and 3 of the series. Can they head into their off-day with a nice road trip? Jhoulys Chacin (0-0) vs Chase Anderson (1-2) Game highlights below. Top of the 1st - with one out Arraez got to second after Cavan Biggio surprisingly threw the ball way over Travis Shaw's head. Polanco flew out for number 2 of the inning. Then Cruz hit a single scoring Arraez. Donaldson singled. Then, Garver walked. With the bases loaded and 2 outs, Sano came up to bad and showed why he should be rated with 80 power. He hit the Twins 2nd grand slam of the season to left center field. Twins lead 5-0 Top of the 2nd - Kepler continues to rake hitting a 412 foot shot. Twins lead 6-0 Bottom of the 2nd - Randal Grichuk wanted to join the home run party and hit a solo shot of his own off of Chacin. Twins lead 6-1 Top of the 3rd - Donaldson singled again, and Garver walked again...And Sano hit another bomb again, 421 ft. If only Cruz got on base to start the inning, Sano would have had back to back grand slams in this game. Rosario grounded out, and then Buxton hit a double. Kepler told Sano, if you can do it so can I, and hit his 2nd home run in as many at bats. Arraez then singled. And Anderson was happy to walk off the mound getting through 2.2 innings. Jacob Waguespack took over for the Jays. First batter he faced, Polanco launches a triple to the gap scoring Arraez. Then Cruz came up again this inning and hit an RBI single. Then Donaldson popped out to end the inning. Holy moly that was fun!!! Twins lead 13-1 Bottom of the 3rd - I give the Blue Jays credit as they wanted to fight this one out. First at bat, Gurriel Jr hits a HR that only had a 16% chance of leaving the field. Next batter Chacin gives up his 3rd home run of the game to Bichette which had a slightly better 30% chance to be a HR. Vlad Jr. singled, Teoscar Hernandez hit a triple to dead center that had a 27% chance of not being caught by Buxton. Then Panik hit a sinking liner to Buxton that only had a 14% chance of not being caught, and it defied the odds and landed in for an RBI single. Frustrating to say the least for the Twins to see 4 out of 5 batters beat low odds on plays. Chacin followed up the single by plunking both Drury AND Shaw and somehow didn't get ejected from the game but Baldelli said he saw enough and yanked him for Dobnak. Dobnak got two easy outs before giving up a single to Gurriel Jr. (Both teams hit through the order this inning). The single scored Panik, but the Twins got their own luck and Buxton threw out Drury at home with 32% odds he'd throw the perfect bullet. This is one of the more crazy innings I have seen in this game. So much has happened this game and we are only through three innings!!! Twins lead 13-6 Top of the 4th - Garver, Rosario and Buxton all singled, Buxton's scored Garver. That was the most normal half inning the Twins have had so far. Twins lead 14-6 Top of the 5th - Cruz leads the inning off with a homer. Two batters later Garver said, "Hey, I hit for power too, dontcha know?" He has adopted Minnesota phrases pretty quickly. And he hit a home run as well. Cruz slammed his 452 ft. Garver's went 428 ft. Twins lead 16-6 Top of the 6th - With 2 outs, Cruz thought if everyone is hitting 2 home runs this game I may as well join that bandwagon. Then the very next batter, Donaldson being the newcomer to the team wanted to fit in with the rest of the guys and hit his first HR of the game 416 ft to LF. Twins lead 18-6 Bottom of the 7th - Dobnak did a great job coming in to relieve Chacin throwing 3 straight 1-2-3 innings. But he was exhausted so Duffey came in to start the 7th. He gave up a double to Bichette who eventually scored on a Drury single. Twins lead 18-7 Bottom of the 8th - Not Duffey's best game today. Tellez got on after a Duffey error, and then scored after Biggio hit a double. Luckily the Twins didn't need Duffey or any of their pitchers to have good stuff today. Twins lead 18-8 Top of the 9th - The Twins weren't even trying at this point. But with bad play by the Jays they couldn't help but run up the score. Donaldson took a base on balls. He scored on a single by Garver and a subsequent error on the play. Then Sano who had a monster of a game hit a double to score Garver. And that was that. May came in for the bottom of the 9th and got three easy outs to end the game. TWINS WIN 20-8 What a fun game! 8 home runs for the twins, 3 players hitting 2 a piece. 11 extra base hits in total. The Twins were a whopping 7-14 with runners in scoring position. Chacin had a horrible game with a game score of an extremely low 3. But it didn't matter at all with the bats going off like they did. Twins 12-6 _ 2nd place, 3 games behind Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=6cab95a1d12c4ff08255eefedfa37dcc&ReportType=1 Other League News The Philadelphia (11-7) v. Milwaukee (7-10) game also had three players hit 2 HRs a piece. Gregorius, Harrison and Braun. Game 19, 4-15-20 Twins are going for their 2nd straight sweep in a row, both would be on the road if they can accomplish it today. Berrios (3-1) v. a pitcher the Twins couldn't get in Ryu (2-1). Game Highlights below. Top of the 1st - Kepler hit a single, Sano walked, then Donaldson hit a single scoring Kepler. Garver walked to load the bases for Jake Cave, who fouled out to end the inning. Twins continue scoring in the 1st inning game after game. Twins lead 1-0 Bottom of the 2nd - After getting through the 1st inning with out much damage, Berrios walked Gurriel Jr. to start the bottom of the 2nd and then gave up a 456 wallop to Drury. Damage done. Jays lead 2-1 Top of the 6th - Coming off a crazy 28 combined run game. This one must be a hang over game as not much has happened, singles here and there but not much else going on. Polanco got on base with a walk in the top of the 6th. Buxton moved him to third on a single and then ran to second himself on the throw to third. Jason Adam relieved Ryu. Kepler scored Polanco on a ground out. Tied up the game, but that a ground out RBI has been one of the most exciting things to happen this game! Game tied 2-2 Bottom of the 8th - With two outs and nobody on Berrios gave up his second home run of the game to Teoscar Hernandez. The two home runs hurt, but overall Berrios pitched a good game. Rogers comes into the game to relieve and gets the last out of the inning. Jays lead 3-2 Top of the 9th - Do or die time for the Twins down a run. Kepler walked to start the inning. Wilmer Font comes in to pitch for the Jays. He walks Sano and Rosario pinch runs for him. Cruz smacks a double scoring Kepler which ties up the game. With still no outs, Anthony Bass comes in for Font after he blew the save. Donaldson comes up to bat and hits a single scoring Rosario and giving the Twins the lead. Now this game is turning into a fun one like the rest of this series. Just took 9 innings to get there today. Next up Garver hit a double, scoring both Cruz and Donaldson. Jake Cave singled. Adrianza grounded out, the first of the innings but it scored Garver. Polanco walked and then Buxton walked. Kepler comes up again as the Twins hit through the line up for the 2nd game in a row. Kepler got an RBI ground out. Finally Rosario grounded out to end that horrendous inning for the Jays. Twins lead 8-3 Bottom of the 9th - The Blue Jays got runners in scoring position early in the inning, but Rogers shut them down for his 1st win of the season. TWINS WIN 8-3 What a series. The bats that had been on and off for the season finally came roaring alive. 39 hits in the series sweep. Berrios got the Quality Start with a 55 game score mostly lower because of the 2 home runs. The Twins are on fire winning 6 straight. Unfortunately Cleveland keeps winning too (16-3) Twins 13-6 _ 2nd Place, 3 games behind Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=cc3326d70247441188038b05fbc096b3&ReportType=1 Other League News Top pitchers had great games today. Buehler, Ray, Verlander, Wheeler, Soroka, and Darvish all dominated in their starts today. Cleveland did not have a great game but snuck out the win with a Naquin walk off single in the 11th inning. Carlos Correa is out for two months for the Astros with an injury.

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 17, 4-13-20 After the Twins swept the White Sox it was time to move on to Toronto. Toronto is off to a cold start (7-9) last in the AL East. This is doable for the Twins to get another sweep on the road. Game 1 matches up Homer Bailey (0-2) vs Trent Thornton (0-1). Game highlights below. The first two innings were a pitchers duel 12 up, 12 down between the two teams. Bottom of the 3rd - Travis Shaw was safe on an error by Polanco. The Twins started the season with stellar defense and now it seems like we are giving up errors left and right. I could change the lineups around with no Arraez or Sano to get better defense (The way the AI has the team set to run), but then we would lose some of our key bats. Overall not worth it. Jansen and Cavan Biggio walked, loading the bases. Gurriel Jr. hit a single scoring Shaw. Bichette grounded out but it scored Danny Jansen. ​Blue Jays lead 2-0 Bottom of the 4th - Randal Grichuk singled, then Bailey gave up a 2 run home run to Brandon Drury, his 1st of the season. ​Blue Jays lead 4-0 Top of the 5th - It took 4 innings for the Twins to get a hit in this game off Trent Thornton, it took 5 for the Twins to get a home run. Sano walked, Rosario grounded out, Buxton struck out, then Kepler hit a 2 run shot, 426 ft to dead center. This was his 6th home run of the season, only 1 behind the AL leader Michael Brantley. Despite only hitting .214 so far Kepler has been MVP of this offense. Blue Jays lead 4-2 Top of the 6th - After Bailey got through a 1-2-3 inning, the Twins need some runs as time is running out. Cruz walked and Donaldson came up and hit a 444 ft blast tying up the game. Garver walked up to the batters box and hit another HR, the Twins first back to back HRs this season. Twins lead 5-4 Top of the 7th - Bailey got another 1-2-3 inning in the bottom of the 6th, his 4th of this game which gave the Twins a chance to expand the lead. With 2 outs, it didn't look like much was going to happen, but the Twins started to rally after Polanco got plunked. Cruz came up and watched some bad pitches go by for a base on balls again. And that was it for Thornton who gave up the mound for Wilmer Font. Donaldson made Charlie Montoyo look foolish with that move. He hit a 2 RBI double giving the Twins some cushion. Twins lead 7-4 Bottom of the 8th - After giving up a double to Reese McGuire, Romo came in to relieve Homer Bailey. Despite 4 runs given up, Bailey pitched a good, very efficient game overall, game score 58. Romo got out of the inning unscathed. Twins lead 7-4 Top of the 9th - Cruz walked his 3rd time this game. Donaldson must not be a friend of Wilmer Font because he has not been treating him well this game. Donaldson hit his 2nd 425+ ft HR of the game. Twins lead 9-4 Bottom of the 9th - Combined Romo and Rogers gave up a couple men on base to end the game. Twins Win 9-4 One, I found it weird that Romo was left in the game and they threw Rogers in there for part of the 9th when this was a blow out. It was a good way to waste 2 of our top arms when we may need them the next game. Romo has pitched 12.1 innings, has a 14-5 K/BB, and only given up 1 ER, 0.73 ERA. Rogers has pitched 8 innings, batters are hitting .107 off him, he has a whip of 0.88 and has not let up an earned run yet. The player of this game, though, was definitely Josh Donaldson. He had only 2 doubles and 1 HR going into the game. His line for this game was 5 AB, 2 Runs, 3 Hits, 1 double, 2 home runs, 6 RBI. He got more RBI and HRs in this game then he had the prior 16 games. His OPS is now up to .770; with a few more games like this, that will be very respectable soon. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=3f63f11555784ec7b9bc4836d1a8ffff&ReportType=1 Other League News In interleague play, Strasburg pitched a 2 hitter for Washington (10-6) over (6-12) Seattle. That brings his ERA down to a ridiculous 0.38 early in the season. Adalberto Mondesi of KC (8-8) hit a pair of home runs off the White Sox's (6-10) Reynaldo Lopez leading KC to the win. Philadelphia (10-7) beat Milwaukee (7-9) led by Andrew McCutchen who was a double away from hitting for the cycle. Twins Player Stats & More https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 15, 4-11-20 (I missed posting yesterday, so two short posts today.). Twins coming off a win vs Chicago wants to expand on that. Odorizzi (2-0) vs. Gio Gonzalez (1-0). Both game highlights below. The Twins started out hot. Buxton hit a single to start out the game. Kepler doubled scoring Buxton from 1st. Sano singled, scoring Kepler. Cruz doubled, but Sano only could make it to third where he got stranded. Twins leading 2-0. In the bottom of the 4th, Luis Robert hit a single to Jake Cave with 2 men on base. Cave threw a bullet home nailing Yoan Moncada to end the inning. Everything was pretty tame for the rest of the game. Odorizzi pitched 8 wonderful innings getting the win, 4 hits, 2 walks, 0 runs, 13 Ks, game score 89. Rogers came in for the last inning and got his 4th save of the season. Twins win 2-0 https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=fdf2636c66064170a67804cd9b04aa76&ReportType=1 Other League News Jon Gray pitched a 4 hit shut out for Colorado (10-4) 90 game score. Trevor Story went 3-5 in the same game bringing his batting avg. to .429. Game 16, 4-12-20 Twins going for the sweep today vs. the White Sox. Maeda (1-1) vs. Keuchel (1-1). The Twins just like last game are making a splash to start off the game again. Buxton doubled to lead off the game. Then Sano knocked in Buxton. Twins lead 1-0. Maeda got in trouble in the bottom of the 2nd. Encarnacion hit a single, Abreu got on base after Adrianza threw the ball wildly to first. Grandal hit a single scoring a run. Robert then hit into a double play scoring Abreu. Chicago leads 2-1. Bottom of the third, Yoan Moncada hit a bomb to CF, but Buxton and his amazing defense robbed him of an extra base hit. Also Tim Anderson got walked, and Garver had enough and got ejected from the game. In the top of the 4th, Cruz finally hit his first HR of the season tying this game up. Tied 2-2. More Twins highlights in the top of the 6th. Sano and Cruz started out with singles. Donaldson hit the third single in a row giving the Twins their first lead in 4 innings. Twins lead 3-2. Top of the 7th, Polanco walked and Buxton doubled. With no outs Keuchel who pitched a good game thus far, was pulled from the game. Evan Marshall came in for relief. Kepler hit one deep, but was caught but sacrificed in Polanco. Then Sano hit a double scoring buxton. Marshall finally settled down and got out of the inning. Twins lead 5-2. In the top of the 8th the Twins tried to all but end the game. Cave hit his first hr of the season scoring Avila who walked. Buxton eventually got a sacrifice fly on a foul ball scoring Adrianza who doubled earlier. Twins lead 8-2. In the bottom of the 9th, with Sergio Romo pitching the White Sox wanted to give it one last go. Moncada hit a hard one back to Romo to start the inning and Romo booted it for an error. Encarnacion and Abreu loaded the bases for Yasmani Grandal. A grand slam would make this a game. Grandal ended up hitting a 2 rbi single. Romo then struck out the final three batters Twins Win 8-4 Maeda got the win 3 hits, 0 unearned runs, 1 bb, 8 ks, in 7.2 innings. Game score 80. Twins get the much needed sweep before heading to Toronto. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=05eb0a40429b4f118a09a171a08f978a&ReportType=1 Twins 10-6 _ 2nd place, 3.5 games behind Cleveland Other League News Trea Turner of Washington out for 2 weeks. He is having a mediocre season so far. Oakland (9-7) had some 9th inning magic vs the Yankees (7-9) when Pinder who is having a horrible season hit a walk off double. Luis Castillo pitched a gem for Cincinnati game score of 93, putting him 3-0 on the season with 1.69 era. Ozuna hit a 12th inning home run (his 2nd of the season) to put Arizona (9-8) on top of Miami (5-12). The Tigers got their 4th win of the season, with help from the weather when the game was stopped after the top of the 6th due to rain. Twins Stats & More https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 14, 4-10-20 The Twins are back on the road after a much needed day off. Two rough home series losses to tough teams in Oakland and Cleveland was not what the Twins were expecting in their first home stand. But now they are up against an easier White Sox team even if they were only a half a game behind the Twins (6-6). Jose Berrios (2-1) is up against Giolito (2-1). Two aces, let's see if this ends up being a pitching duel or if one of these studs had a dud. Game highlights below. Bottom of the 1st - After Giolito got out of his inning just giving up a walk to Kepler and a single to Cruz, the White Sox wanted to challenge Berrios out of the gates. Tim Anderson struck out to start the game for Chicago, but then Nomar Mazara hit his first double of the year. Yoan Moncada singled moving Mazara to third, and then Moncada stole 2nd. Encarnacion hit one right to Donaldson who threw a dart to Garver and got Mazara at home for the 2nd out. But then Abreu hit a line drive to Buxton scoring Moncada before Berrios got out of a tough inning. Chicago leads 1-0 Top of the 4th - There was a huge pitchers duel for the past two innings before it all started to fall apart for Giolito and Chicago...at least temporarily. Cruz singled, Donaldson and Sano walked. With one out, Rosario who has been platooning in LF this season was up. He hit a 419 ft blast to right center for his 3rd HR of the season and the Twins 1st Grand Slam of the season. Buxton followed that up with a single and Giolito got out of the inning but some major damage was done. Twins lead 4-1 Bottom of the 5th - White Sox loaded the bases with two outs, and Abreu who knocked in the first run of the game was up. He hit a heck of a shot down the third base line, but Donaldson has range and snagged it to save Berrios out of that jam. Twins lead 4-1 Top of the 7th - Minus the grand slam, Lucas Giolito pitched a really good game. He got a couple strike outs but gave up a couple singles as well and was replaced by Jace Fry who got the final out with Twins stranding two. Twins lead 4-1 Bottom of the 7th - Anderson and Mazara started out the innings with singles a piece moving Anderson to third. Encarnacion hit a ground ball fielder's choice scoring Anderson. Twins lead 4-2 Top of the 8th - Garver hit a double, and then after a walk and hit batter the bases were loaded with 2 outs for Kepler. Kepler wanted to follow in Rosario's footsteps and hit the 2nd Grand Slam of the game and all but end this one. He came close, but flew out to right field. Twins lead 4-2 Bottom of the 9th - The Twins were still up 4-2 and Berrios was still pitching and pitching well. The top of Chicago's lineup was up and Anderson started it out with a single. And that was it for Berrios. 8 IP, 8 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 9K, Game Score 66. Taylor Rogers came in and got the first two out. One more needed to close out the game. Encarnacion walked, and Cuthbert moved to 2nd. Abreu was up again in a clutch situation and he should have grounded out, but Sano missed the ball...were errors going to cost the Twins another game? Cuthbert scored, but Adam Engel running for Encarnacion was not quite fast enough to get home and waited at third. Abreu, the winning run was on 2nd. James McCann was intentionally walked to bring up Luis Robert, a future phenom but how would he do here? Rogers induced a foul ball bloop to Donaldson to get his 3rd save and end the game. Berrios picked up the win (3-1) ​ Minnesota is now 6-2 on the road, and with more games against .500 or below teams coming up, that should continue to improve. A much needed win. Especially since Cleveland lost to Tampa Bay! https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=8e877397d49e49f9b2b69114fdda6d9b&ReportType=1 Twins 8-6 _ 2nd place, 4.5 behind Cleveland Other League News Dodgers (9-5) walked off the Nationals (7-6) in a very nondramatic fashion sacrifice fly. Raimel Tapia ended a game in a stronger way hitting his 2nd home run of the season in the 12th inning giving Colorado (9-4) the win over Arizona (7-8). Jeff McNeil is out for 3 weeks for the Mets. Verlander moved to 4-0 on the season with 4 dominating starts. Bryce Harper had some extra inning heroics with a 2 run HR that proved to be the game winner for Philadelphia (8-6) over Cincinnati (7-6), his third of the season...surprisingly behind Jay Bruce who hit his 4th dinger of the season. Ronald Acuna Jr. wanted to join the fun for Atlanta (7-8) hitting a 2 run game winner. Twins Player Stats and more https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

The 7-6 start isn't great, but there is definitely a lot of upside. If I was keeping babip stats, I'm sure most of our hitters would be well below .300. I think we will turn this around!

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 13, 4-8-20 Cleveland tied up the series yesterday at 1 a piece and the Twins really want the win today. With Chacin recovering from an injury Randy Dobnak gets the start today and he has a tough one going up against 2-0 Justin, I mean Shane Bieber. Game highlights below. ​Top of the 1st - Dobnak started with 2 straight outs before Lindor hit a single. With a hot Santana at the plate, the Indians thought if Lindor got to 2nd base there would be a good shot that Santana would get an RBI. Lindor took off for 2nd, and Garver threw the perfect throw to Arraez and caught him stealing to end the inning. Tied 0-0 Top of the 3rd - Cesar Hernandez hit a deep fly to right field, and squeaked out a home run. Cleveland leads 1-0 Top of the 4th - Franmil Reyes followed up Hernandez and hit a home run to left field. One more solo shot for the Indians. Cleveland leads 2-0 Bottom of the 4th - Arraez started out the inning with a lead off double. With Polanco, Cruz and Donaldson up next the Twins were certain they'd cut this lead down if not tie or take the lead. The Biebs took over though and struck out all three to end the inning. Cleveland leads 2-0 Bottom of the 6th - Buxton flied out, then Kepler struck out looking. Arraez is having a good game and hit another single and Polanco followed suit with a single moving Arraez to 2nd. We wouldn't want anyone else up other than Nelson Cruz, but he continues to struggle and strikes out again. Cleveland leads 2-0 Top of the 8th - Dobnak started the top of the 8th by striking out DeShields. But at this point his arm was turning into jelly and he hit Oscar Mercado. And that was it for Dobnak, he had a pretty good outing today. 7.1 innings, 5 hits, 1 walk, 8 Ks, 3 ER, 68 game score. The only downside was the 2 solo shot home runs. Trevor May comes into the game, May is kind of struggling out early in the season and he immediately gave up a 2 run shot to Lindor before retiring the side. Cleveland leads 4-0 Bottom of the 8th - Bieber finally is tiring out himself after an outstanding start thus far. Kepler got hit by a pitch and the super hot Arraez (.333 BA) hit his first homer of the season cutting the lead to 2...I wonder what would have happened if we kept Dobnak in instead of May. Nelson Cruz finally got a hit, getting 2 bases on his shot to left center, but he could not score before Nick Goody came in and got the final out of the inning. Cleveland leads 4-2 Top of the 9th - After hitting into a fielders choice and then stealing a base, Puig was on 2nd when Tyler Clippard relieved May for his first appearance of the season. He got the two outs to get the Twins their last shot to at least tie up this game but gave up a single to Roberto Perez who scored Puig. Cleveland leads 5-2 Bottom of the 9th - Goody struck out Rosario. Cave pinch hit for Buxton and took 4 balls and walked to first. Kepler struck out giving Arraez a chance to get the tying run to the plate. Arraez hit the ball up the middle but grounded into a fielders choice to end the game. Indians win 5-2 Not a bad game or series for the Twins despite losing both. The Twins played well here. Dobnak did really well in his starting pitcher debut. Arraez is on fire. Cruz is hopefully getting out of his slump ending his last at bat of the game with a double. The Twins had 8 chances with runners in scoring position but could not get a hit when it count going 0-8 this game with RISP, and 4-30 with RISP for the series. The Twins get a much needed day off on the 9th after a disappointing couple of home series before heading off to Chicago and Toronto next. The White Sox are 6-6 and Toronto is 4-8...hopefully the Twins can take advantage of some teams we should easily beat. https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=e96f2f5e53f542e29f7d3b023077946b&ReportType=1 Twins 7-6 _ 3rd place, 5 games behind Cleveland Other League News Not a ton of exciting news this week, but here are some surprise starts. Baltimore 7-5, 2nd in the East. Kansas City 6-5 2nd in the Central. Colorado 8-4 tied for first in the NL West.

Unfortunately no sweep. Let's see if we can take the series. Thanks for the stats suggestion!

Thanks DocBauer. Yup, I thought doing a daily sim would bring a tiny bit of joy with no sports going on. It's helping me out a little bit, hopefully a few others as well.

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 12, 4-7-20 After giving Cleveland their first loss of the season, game 2 of the series is an important one for the Twins to keep their positive momentum going. Kenta Maeda coming off an unbelievable start is going up against Mike Clevinger which is a tougher matchup for the Twins then Clase in the first game. Can the Twins get 2 in a row? Game highlights below. Bottom of the 2nd - Nelson Cruz has been struggling this season. He is one of the only Twins starters not to hit a home run yet, surprisingly. Frustrated with how the early season is going, he watched a questionable third strike go by him, got angry, argued the call and got tossed from the game. Alex Avila came in to the DH spot to take over for the ejected Cruz. Tied 0-0 Top of the 3rd - Ramirez got robbed by Arraez to start off the game. Leading off in the third he snuck a double by Arraez this time. Freeman singled and then Lindor walked. Maeda in a huge jam with the bases loaded and no outs. Santana grounded out to 3rd but scored Ramirez. Maeda induced two more ground outs to end the inning fairly unscathed. Cleveland leads 1-0 Bottom of the 5th - Clevinger continued his no hitter through the first two batters, but then the Twins finally started to figure Clevinger out. Rosario shot a towering 451 ft home run to right field. Buxton followed it up with a Triple. Then Kepler hit his 5th home run of the season. Twins lead 3-1 Top of the 7th - Kenta Maeda gets two outs and Baldelli shuts him down for the day. A great quality start for Maeda, 6.2 innings, 7 men on base, 4 Ks, 67 game score. Tyler Duffey comes in for relief and gets Lindor to ground out to end the inning. Twins lead 3-1 Bottom of the 7th - Clevinger continues to struggle just a little walking Rosario and giving up a single to Buxton to start the inning. Nick Wittgren relieved him. Kepler fouled out. Arraez grounded into a fielder's choice, and Polanco struck out, squandering the threat the twins had. Twins 3-1 Top of the 8th - Things started to fall off the rails for Duffey. He walked Santana, and then Roberto Perez hit a single to left field. Cesar Hernandez got another single for the Indians, scoring Santana. Naquin had a sacrifice fly scoring another run. Mercado got another single putting men on 1st and 3rd. Duffey got one more out before being replaced by Taylor Rogers, who almost gave up a HR to Jose Ramirez, but was caught by Rosario deep in left. Tied 3-3 Bottom of the 9th - Rosario leads the inning off with a double putting the winning run in scoring position with no outs. Buxton got intentionally walked. Kepler hit a little bloop pop out. Marwin Gonzalez comes in for Arraez and goes down on strikes. Polanco connected, but hit it right to third sending the Twins back out on the field in extra innings. Tied 3-3 Top of the 10th - Baldelli is trusting his top arm in Rogers leaving him in for his tsecond inning. Rogers didn't let Baldelli down sitting the Indians down in order with 2 Ks. Tied 3-3 Bottom of the 10th - Brad hand is in his 2nd inning pitched for Cleveland. Josh Donaldson had a good eye getting walked, but that is all the Twins could accomplish this inning. Top of the 11th - Baldelli has already left Rogers in for 2.1 innings but wanted him to keep going as he has been on fire. Rogers got two strike outs but hit Mike Freeman with a pitch. Carlos Santana came up and got the inning ending ground out to Rogers, but Rogers booted it allowing Santana to make it safely to first and keep the inning alive. Completely tuckered out, Baldelli finally puts Trevor May in for Rogers. May walked Puig who was pinch hitting. May then got Sandy Leon to ground to Donaldson at third but Donaldson's throw was wild and 2 runs scored before May struck out Naquin to end the inning. Indians lead 5-3 Bottom of the 11th - Brad Hand and Nick Goody come in to end the game with no real threat from the Twins. Indians win 5-3. The Twins defense had been stellar up to this game, but it really cost them this one. Neither run would have occurred in the 11th if it wasn't for Rogers and Donaldson's errors and they had 2 more errors earlier in the game. Seeing a 4 in the last column of the scoreboard is never what you want to see. Duffey gets a blown save, and Rogers, despite a good game gets the loss (0-1) https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=7fa4716eb7914feba4c65e67996d0dd7&ReportType=1 Twins 7-5 _ 2nd Place, 4 games behind Cleveland Other League News The Cubs are off to a mediocre start of the season going into today's game (5-5). But they came to play in Pittsburgh today winning 17-4. They hit 9 home runs! Contreras, Almora Jr. and Baez hit 2 each, Hayward, Bryant and Bote each had one of their own as well. San Diego and Atlanta are both struggling with 5-7 records, but a couple great games gave San Diego the win today. Hosmer went 4-4 with his 2nd and 3rd home run of the season and bringing his season batting average up to .389. MacKenzie Gore didn't make it to the 8th inning but had 14 strike outs with only 4 men on base giving him a 92 game score. Cam Bedrosian of the Angels (4-8) out for 2 months. Twins 2020 Season Player Stats https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0 The Twins have 15 home runs in 12 games which isn't bad, but are still 10 bombs behind the Astros. Their .239 team batting average puts them in the bottom half, just above the Tigers...which definitely says something about the Twins start of the season.

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION Game 11, 4-6-20 This is a huge series early in the season as the undefeated Cleveland Indians are traveling to Minneapolis to face the 2nd place Twins who are 4 games back. This is the Twins chance to make back some games. Hopefully Cleveland's 10-0 start is due to an easy schedule. The match pits Odorizzi up against Emmanuel Clase. Below we will highlight the scoring innings. Bottom of the 2nd - Sano walked, Buxton launched one to left center scoring the "speedy" Sano from 1st. Kepler walked and then Arraez hit one deep into the hole at 2nd and getting by Mike Freeman scoring Buxton. Twins up 2-0 Bottom of the 3rd - Hunter Wood came in relieving Clase at the start of the half inning. Tough outing for Clase. The pitching change didn't help much. Cruz lead off the inning with a single, and Donaldson pushed him to third due to an error by Carlos Santana. Sano grounded out but knocked in Cruz. Twins 3-0 Top of the 6th - Odorizzi finally falters just a little bit. Santana walked to start the inning, followed by a Roberto Perez single moving Santana to third. Odorizzi struck out Puig. Then Cesar Hernandez singled scoring Santana. From there, Odorizzi got out of the jam getting the final 2 outs. Twins 3-1 Bottom of the 6th - Rosario wasn't going to let the Indians get closer, and led off the inning with a HR to right field. Twins 4-1 Top of the 7th - Odorizzi gave up a double to Freeman and then a walk (64 Game score, quality start), and Sergio Romo came in to get the last out of the inning, no runs scored. Twins 4-1 Bottom of the 7th - Nick Wittgren relieved Wood. Once again the Twins immediately capitalized. Polanco doubled deep to right, just missing a Home Run, Cruz walked and then Sano ended his nice game with a 2 RBI triple. Twins 6-1 Top of the 9th - Baldelli kept Romo in the game to keep fresh arms. Ramirez singled. He struck out Freeman. Lindor got a single moving Ramirez to second. But Romo got a hot Carlos Santana to ground out with a game ending double play. Odorizzi gets the win (2-0). Romo gets the junk save. Cleveland gets their first loss of the season by way of the TWINS! Twins win 6-1 https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=dbcc347798bd4cebae87684dd81e581d&ReportType=1 Twins 7-4 _ 2nd Place, 3 games behind Cleveland Other League News Not much to say other than a PERFECT GAME. Madison Bumgarner and Arizona up against Bumgarner's former team, San Fran. 27 up, 27 down with 12 Ks. You may say, oh this simulation pushes these type of results. I have played dynasty league baseball for 25 years be it rolling dice, the pc cd-rom sim, to the now online sim...I have easily played over 1,000 games of this, and have NEVER seen a perfect game until this one. I've only seen a handful of no-hitters. This is super rare. I posted on the game's FB page, and they re-posted it because it is so rare. Pretty awesome. Link to see the box score and recap: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=6aa5c46d80bb430eacf93555ace770eb&ReportType=1 Twins 2020 season Player Stats: https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/TeamStats.aspx?OrgID=116202&TeamID=10&Report=0&GameType=0&Splits=0

They added 30 of the top rookies for 2020 based off their projected stats. Not sure who got added. Since you will be commissioner of the solo replay league you can go in and change rosters around of any team, so you can manually do trades on the back end, but there aren't trade offers and such when you solo like there would be in a video game simulation. If you play a historic season, they do all trades, signings, etc on the actual day they happened in real life. The AI does the transactions automatically.

Go to www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com I am pretty sure they always have a 2 day free subscription to try it out before you have to sign up and pay $ (it's kind of expensive but it ends up being worth it if you spend tons of hours on the site like I do). Once you are signed in, if you want to play a replay league you hit the League tab at the top of the screen. Then their is a Season Replay League button. Click that, pick what year and team you want to play and a couple other settings. They have 1993-current, then random years before that. The rulebook for the game is on the site under the Home Plate tab. Definitely read up on that so you understand the game if you've never played. Even if you've played in the past, they tweak the rules each year to fit today's game. It's super fun, I'm in a draft league with 23 other guys across the U.S., I do a solo historical league by myself and then I'm doing this 2020 season to see how it plays out.

Doctor Gast, It definitely has it's limitations as a simulation for the 2020 season as the games player cards are based off what they did in real life and usually runs a season behind. The game designers did 2020 to appease us through this delayed or non-season which is awesome. But their won't be a Balazovic, Kirilof, Lewis, Larnach or Rooker sighting in this simulation, for example. I was 11 days behind in the season, so I had a lot of recapping to do. I was going to do mid month and end of month updates with standings and some stats...but since I'm planning on updating every real day the Twins were supposed to have a game, I can add a link to see the Twins player stats to the daily blog. Good suggestion.

TWINS 2020 SEASON SIMULATION I'm simulating the 2020 season on the online board game Dynasty League Baseball. Each day I will try to give an update so you can follow along with this imaginary season. I'm a bit behind so I will list the first 10 games of the Twins season here. I will also try to add highlights going on in the league each week along with mid and end of month standings and league leaders. I will also place a link for each game in case you want to check the box score and/or the play by play recap. Game 1 3-26-20 The Twins are off to a good start with their season opener beating Oakland 4-2. Berrios started the game with a quality start and a 73 game score (I use game score 2.0). Romo came in for an inning getting all three strike outs. Taylor Rogers closed the game for the save. Kepler hit 2 doubles, but Buxton was the Player of the Game going 3-4 with a home run while batting 9th. Twins 1-0 _ Tied for 1st in Central https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=115933&GameID=ae9d6573d29743ccaef74ccc30ecd2aa&ReportType=1 Other League News Garret Cooper-Miami and Howie Kendrick-Washington started the season out with 2 HRs a piece...not the sluggers you'd expect. Game 2 3-27-20 The Twins struggle to get a hit off of Oakland's Sean Manea through 4 innings. But in the 5th the bats started to heat up, with the nail in the coffin coming from Kepler with a 3 run HR in the 8th. Odorizzi pitched a gem, the only ding was giving a HR up to Chapman in the 9th inning. Pitched 8.2 innings with an 83 Game score Twins 2-0 _ 1st by 1/2 a game https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=7e1f1807019c4aa988564e696f209c43&ReportType=1 Other League News Texas thought they had Seattle beat by scoring 2 in the top of the 10th, but Carlos Gonzalez of Seattle hit a walk off single in the bottom of the 10th. Mookie Betts starting off hot for the Dodgers going 4-5 in his 2nd game wearing an LA uniform. Jon Gray made it 3.1 innings for Colorado before he got injured for 2 weeks. Bumgarner in his Arizona debut and Greinke in Houston also only lasted 4 innings before getting injured. They'll be back before their next start. Game 3 3-28-20 Twins get their first loss, losing 1-7 in Oakland. Kenta Maeda had a rough start giving up 4 runs in 5.1 innings, game score of 54. The Twins didn't capitalize when they needed to going 0-8 with RISP. Twins 2-1 _ 2nd by a half a game https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=e2accd3b6d104386ae222fe066027ee0&ReportType=1 Other League News First shut out of the season goes to the Dodgers over the Giants, a combined outing by David Price and Pedro Baez. 8 men on with 15 strike outs. Baltimore surprised the Yankees with the win and hit 6 home runs. Game 4 3-29-20 The Twins just miss winning the series. Oakland wins game 4, 6-5. Homer Bailey got beat up giving up all 6 runs, 46 game score. The Twins rally'd around Sano throughout the game. He had an rbi double early in the game and made it a 1 run game after his 2 man HR in the 8th. Hoping to tie or win the game in the 9th, Liam Hendricks came in for Oakland and struck out Cave, Kepler, and Arraez to save the game. Donaldson is having a rough start in Minneapolis hitting .067 for the series. Twins 2-2 _ 3rd place, 1.5 back of Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=24578723158342f0b08ef29c1329d696&ReportType=1 Other League News Texas beats Seattle by a football score 20-10 led by Joey Gallo's 3 HRs and 6 RBI. San Diego got their first win of the season over Colorado with a 10th inning walk off single by Francisco Mejia. The White Sox were down 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th when Abreu hit a 3 run walk off HR giving Giolito a CG win. Houston also went off scoring 17 runs...the Angels said they heard some garbage can banging. Philly and Miami both went through 8 pitchers each in their 13 inning game, while Detroit and Cleveland went through 9 pitchers total in their 16 inning game. Despite the Yankees win, they had bad news losing Gio Urshela for 14 days and Gary Sanchez for 20. Phillies lose Seranthony Dominguez for the season. Game 5 3-30-20 The Twins are hoping to reverse their fortune traveling to Seattle...and boy did they ever winning 20-2 with 16 Hits and 11 Walks. Chacin only made it 2/3 of an inning before getting injured and will probably miss his next start. Dobnak came in for the majority of the game and pitched really well. Mitch Garver is on fire early this season. He went 5-6 with 3 HRs and 5 RBI. Twins 3-2 _ 2nd place, 1.5 behind Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=a866ab51f4ae4d88bfb1cff758b571a1&ReportType=1 Other League News Lorenzo Cain had a walk off HR for Milwaukee over STL, his first HR of the season. Cleveland is the only undefeated team at this point at 4-0. The Giants and Angels are yet to win a game at 0-4. Game 6 3-31-20 Minnesota takes game 2 in Seattle 3-1. Berrios was the player of the game giving up only 5 hits with 8 Strikeouts in 7.2 innings, 77 Game score. Rogers came in for his first save since opening day. Twins 4-2 _ 2nd place, 1 behind Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=978d07d352e1484c8496b9f5773b1b19&ReportType=1 Other League News Mike Soroka pitched a CG shutout, 93 GS for Atlanta over SD. But Patrick Corbin of Washington did even better with his CG shutout over Miami, with a whopping 99 Game Score, and 15 Ks. Lance Lynn of Texas didn't have a shutout but struck out 16 Angels batters. Baltimore is above .500. Game 7 4-1-20 Minnesota sweeps Seattle with a 5-4 win in game 3 of the series. Odorizzi had a pedestrian day with a 60 game score. Romo came in for the win late and has now pitched 6.1 innings on the season with no runs given up. This game was tied up 4-4 in the top of the 9th when Kepler hit a 2-out 410 ft bomb to right field which turned into the game winner. Twins 5-2 _ 2nd place, 1.5 behind Cleveland (6-0) https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=075ec823ffe54d84a19df88e4287a1ab&ReportType=1 Other League News Despite the Angels just getting their first win, Trout has been raking, batting .429. The Cubs were just about to 10-run-rule the Pirates in the sixth (10-1) when the game was called due to rain. Game 8 4-2-20 Twins home opener!!!! Oakland is in town for game 1, and then tomorrow we get our first day off of the season. And Holy Smokes, what a way to start at Target Field in 2020. Twins beat Oakland 5-0. Kenta Maeda started and pitched a phenomenal game 98 game score. For some reason Baldelli pulled him for Romo with one out left in the game. Maeda pitched 8.2 innings gave up 1 hit, and 2 walks with 8 Ks, definitely making up for his bad first start of the season. Kepler added his 4th home run of the season on the offensive side. Twins 6-2 _ 2nd place, 1.5 behind Cleveland (they just won't lose) https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=da888236e4a34de8ae075ccb6a036512&ReportType=1 Other League News Cleveland beats Detroit 5-4. 4 out of their 7 wins have been by 1 run. Day off After winning 4 in a row, time for a breather. Twins 6-2 _ 2nd Place, 2 behind Cleveland Other League News Tony Wolters of Colorado had a walk off single over San Diego, with Daniel Murphy just sliding in safe over a great throw from Wil Myers in LF. After all the 1 run wins, Cleveland destroys Detroit 14-0 with Plesac pitching a 90 Game score complete game. Game 9, 4-4-20 Well the day off hurt the momentum as the Twins fall at home to Oakland 1-3. Homer Bailey gets his 2nd loss of the season, but it was a tough one as he had a quality start 67 Game Score. Kepler hit the lone RBI on a SF and Arraez, Donaldson and Rosario were the only players to get a hit. Twins 6-3 _ 2nd Place, 3 behind Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=2e8cb0e19b014a0e821de1903f198255&ReportType=1 Other League News After starting 0-5 versus the Astros, the Angels finally beat them 17-6 with 5 hits by Fletcher and 4 each for Rendon and Trout. Former spring training Twin Anibal Sanchez only lasted 1.1 innings giving up 8 runs for the Stros. Nico Hoerner, an 8th inning defensive replacement for the Cubs had a walk off homer in the 10th beating the Dbacks. Game 10, 4-5-20 The Twins continue to struggle against the A's, losing the home series with a 2-6 loss. Berrios had 15 Ks, but also let 13 men on base and gave up 5 Earned Runs, 66 Game Score. It was a deceiving start as he almost rolled through the 9th with a quality start. Polanco is batting .297 and hit his first HR of the season. Twins 6-4 _ 2nd place, 4 behind Cleveland https://www.dynastyleaguebaseball.com/GameRecap.aspx?OrgID=116202&GameID=195be33cee844983bbe03409c607b2eb&ReportType=1 Other League News The Indian's Adam Plutko 2 hits the Tigers in a CG shutout, 100 game score, bringing the Indians to 10-0 on the season. 5 of their 7 qualified batters are hitting above .300 on the season, all are batting above .283. 4 out of their 5 starting pitchers have a WHIP under 1.0 after their first 2 starts on the season. Raimel Tapia of Colorado (7-3) had a 25% chance his deep drive would be a walk off 3 run HR in the 11th, and he hit the jackpot beating SD. Charlie Morton of TB (8-1) also threw a 2 hit CG over Texas, 94 Game Score. Garrit Cole of the Yankees (5-4) bested all pitchers today with his 2 hitter and 19 Ks, 105 Game Score beating Toronto.