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Brief Overview: The ride of the season has brought these two teams back to face off against each other in the penultimate regular season series between them. The Twins are riding high after climbing higher in their division lead while the Indians have scuffled recently. Ever since the Indians took over sole possession of the division for exactly one entire day, it has been rough sailing for them as they have gone 9-13 while losing a few key pieces to injury. What They Do Well: Hey, the Indians have great starting pitching, shocker, isn’t it? Despite Corey Kluber being out for most of the year, Carlos Carrasco being out after being diagnosed with leukemia (but he has since returned as a reliever, which is amazing to see), and Trevor Bauer being traded, the Indians have the fifth-best starting pitching in all of baseball by fWAR. The secret sauce’s ingredients has been the development of Shane Bieber and Mike Clevinger into aces along with impacts from Zach Plesac and Aaron Civale. Although, peripherals suggest some regression for both of the latter arms. Nevertheless, the Indians’ starting rotation remains a force that will certainly test the Twins’ offense. They not only can pitch, but the lumber in Cleveland is well brought as well. Ever since August (basically when they acquired Yasiel Puig and Franmil Reyes), they have been the ninth-best offense by wRC+ with a respectable 105 mark. I’m sure you want a frame of reference for that, so be aware that Doug Mientkiewicz held a wRC+ of 104 when he was with the Twins. The Indians have cleaned up one of the aspects of their game that was once a negative and the result has been a well-rounded team that can hold its own. What They Do Not Do Well: For months, I said that I didn’t think the Indians’ bullpen was that good and for months, I looked like a crazy man yelling conspiracies with a megaphone in downtown Seattle (it happens). BUT, since the start of August, the Indians have the 20th best bullpen by fWAR and their 4.86 FIP is the 13th worst in baseball over that time period. What happened? Well, the once reliable Brad Hand has a ghastly 7.15 ERA over that time period as his peripherals have also went down the toilet. Both Nick Wittgren and Tyler Clippard have great ERAs but they also both have peripherals that would make anyone blush (that is, in a bad way). Really, beyond them, there isn’t much in the form of a quality reliever that can be trusted for an inning no matter who the batters are, Tyler Duffey might be the best reliever on the Indians if he were there (thank goodness he isn’t). This is going to be a strange one, but they really don’t play well against good teams at all. Take this stat from Andrew Simon: https://twitter.com/AndrewSimonMLB/status/1169705818578718722 Now, beating up on bad teams is pretty much the meta for the AL as a whole as there are many, many teams who would rather lose than win, but it is telling to see that they are bloated on the end of beating teams of poor caliber. The Indians are just 20-32 against teams at or above .500 which is the 19th best mark in baseball. The Twins are 28-32 under the same stipulation and the question for them is whether they can beat teams that are actually good, so the question remains even harsher on the Indians. Individuals Of Note: Mike Clevinger in 2019 so far has made the great decision to strike out more batters while walking a hair fewer, a pretty smart combo I must admit. The result has been an incredible 12.77 K/9 which would be the third-highest mark in MLB among qualified starters if he had the innings to qualify. On top of that (or more accurately, something that feeds into that), his average fastball velocity is up two ticks from 93.6 MPH to 95.8 MPH and his swinging strike % is in the stratosphere at a 15.5% rate. Basically, this is a long way of saying that he good, real good. Oh, and he is scheduled to start on Sunday. I previously mentioned the Puig and Reyes deal in which they dealt from a position of strength to help a part of the team that was very weak, but Puig and Reyes have been sufficiently meh since the deal. Since the start of August, Puig holds a below-average 92 wRC+ and Reyes is at 111. Reyes’ defense (or lack thereof) knocks his value down and both players have been worth just .1 fWAR over that time period which spans over 120 plate appearances for both players. Baseball is naturally a streaky sport, but it seems like the Indians didn’t get the boost they were hoping for from both guys when they acquired them. Recent History: The Twins and Indians last played at Target field in early August. The Indians won that 3-1 and the Indians hold the season series by a tally of 7-6. Recent Trajectories: The Twins are 11-5 over their last five series while the Indians are 7-9 over their last five series. Pitching Matchups: Friday: Pineda vs Plutko Saturday: Odorizzi vs Civale Sunday: TBD vs Clevinger Ending Thoughts: The magic number for the Twins is currently 16 and this series will be a great opportunity to knock that number down a few pegs as each win counts as two towards the magic number. The pitching match-ups fall pretty decently in the Twins’ favor as they get their ace against the Indians’ worst starter and they get their All-Star starter against a rookie as well. The Sunday game may be interesting but now is the chance to show the Indians why you are the top team in the division. I’m feeling a 2-1 series in favor of the Twins and my mojo may be slightly regained after correctly calling the previous series, so watch out if you are an aspiring fortune-teller out there.

Brief Overview: You know about Cleveland right? The team that looked to be dead in the water in May has risen from the ashes and has been one of the hottest teams in all of baseball since June. The offense has found its form and the starting pitching has performed well in the absence of Corey Kluber, Carlos Carraso, and Danny Salazar’s velocity. The result has been an almost unbelievable tear that has placed them just two games behind the Twins for 1st in the division. What They Do Well: Hit, unfortunately. Since the beginning of June, their team wRC+ is 108 which is seventh in MLB and just five ticks behind the Twins’ mark of 113 over the same time period. The difference is very similar to Twins Robbie Grossman (112) and Twins Jason Kubel (107) and in related news, Robbie Grossman’s Twins wRC+ is much higher than I thought it was, huh. Anyway, this is quite the development for Cleveland as up until June 1st, their team wRC+ was 78, good for the fifth lowest in MLB and tied for Brendan Harris’ Twins wRC+ of the same number. Despite being due for regression for about two months now, their bullpen is still the best in baseball by ERA as their 3.29 mark is about as far away from the second place team as the second place team is from the 10th place team (.43 away from second, the second-place team is .42 away from 10th). I say they are due for regression as their team xFIP is only 13th in baseball (remember that xFIP adjusts for home run rate) and their team left on base % (LOB %) is the highest in MLB, suggesting that have either found the secret to holding runners on base (unlikely) or are due to allow some of those base-runners to cross the plate (pretty please). What They Do Not Do Well: I really wish this section was a bit longer, but the truth is that there isn’t a whole lot they do poorly now that their offense has gotten its crap together. The current front of their starting staff is hard to match as Shane Bieber has developed into a true ace as he has already accrued 4.2 fWAR and Mike Clevinger has done very well so far despite some injuries as his fWAR sits at 1.7 already despite having only 55 2/3 innings pitched. The names currently behind them get a little suspicious however as they have Adam Plutko (5.85 FIP), Zach Plesac (4.95 FIP), and Aaron Civale (just 12 major league innings) making up the rest of the rotation as their other arms are on the mend. Those guys will be prime candidates to attack this series and Plutko and Civale are both set to face the Twins. Also going off the back-end of things, which is an awfully strange segue, the end of their lineup isn’t exactly the most inspiring. Currently, Fangraphs projects their typical 7-8-9 hitters to be Jason Kipnis, Roberto Pérez, and Tyler Naquin. Kipnis is holding a wRC+ of 87 on the year but has hit to the tune of a 118 mark since the All-Star break. Pérez is holding a wRC+ of 101 on the year but has hit to an ice-cold mark of 35 since the break. Naquin is at a perfectly even 100 wRC+ mark but has hit to a mark of 146 since the break thanks to a massive BABIP of .444. Basically, the questions here will be whether Kipnis finally found his stroke again, whether Pérez actually made tangible changes or was just getting lucky, and when will the BABIP gods no longer find favor with Naquin. The answers to each question will make or break the lineup depth for the Indians. Individuals Of Note: The Indians made a shocking trade before the deadline when they dealt Trevor Bauer to the Reds in a three-team trade that netted them Yasiel Puig and Franmil Reyes among other players. Despite pimping Bauer out all off-season, I really didn’t think they would trade him but they did so from a position of strength in order to improve some positions of weakness. Puig and Reyes are the big, immediate impacts as the Indians lacked strength in their OF offense and both fill those roles nicely. Puig was actually struggling in Cincinnati before the trade and was probably better at getting into fights than hitting as his wRC+ on the year stands at a below average 96 mark. This is partly because Great American Ballpark is hilariously unbalanced towards hitters and wRC+ adjusts for park but Puig hit at a 123 mark in 2018 so him improving would not be entirely surprising. Franmil Reyes is a bit more interesting in my eyes as he has hit at a 117 wRC+ mark over 191 career games so far and at 6’ 5” and 275 pounds, he is built to play defensive tackle and hit absolute tanks. His numbers in 2019 have dropped a touch despite an ISO jump thanks to some BABIP regression dropping his batting average and on base percentage, but at just 24-years-old, he could still figure some things out before reaching his full potential. Hey, remember that José Ramírez fella who inexplicably stopped hitting in the second half of 2018 and well into the first half of 2019? Yeah, well, it seems like he found it again as his wRC+ since the break is at 148, two ticks higher than both his 2017 and 2018 totals. The big drop for Ramírez this year has been because of a sudden lack of effectiveness against fastballs (28.9 and 38.3 pVAL against heaters in 2017 and 2018 respectively, -4.5 in 2019). If you don’t know what that is, it basically means that he went from murdering fastballs to being unable to hit them almost entirely. If he truly is back, then that could be a massive upgrade to the Indians and it would be very frightening for the Twins. Recent History: The Twins have played three series against the Indians and are 5-4 against them so far. This series will be the first one played at Target Field since the first series of the year in which the Twins took two of three. Recent Trajectories: The Twins are 10-6 over their last five series while the Indians are 11-5 over their last five series. Pitching Match-ups: Thursday: Gibson vs Clevinger Friday: Smeltzer vs Bieber Saturday: Odorizzi vs Plutko Sunday: Berríos vs Civale Ending Thoughts: The Twins get a chance to put an end to the Indians running right through each and every team they go up against by pulling a Thanos and doing the job themselves. A disheartening showing from the pitching staff in the previous Braves series throws some cold water on the hype that was gained after beating up some poor teams, so the Twins will have to start their own momentum here if they intend on doing something. I don’t need to tell you how important this series is as we all are aware that the end result could be as high as a six-game lead for the Twins or as low as a two-game lead for the Indians. Now, I have to gloat because I am a perfect 7-for-7 in my series predictions, leading me to believe that these are not predictions as much as they are me speaking the outcome into existence. The great news? I am calling that the Twins take three of four in the series, an outcome that everyone will love.