The Twins’ August schedule suddenly doesn’t look as promising as it once did, especially if the Twins are going to continue to struggle against the Chicago White Sox.
The Twins ran into a buzzsaw named Lucas Giolito on Wednesday, who pitched a complete game, three-hit shutout with 12 strikeouts and won, 4-0.
The Twins dropped two of three games to the South Siders. They’re off Thursday, then the Detroit Tigers, the worst team in baseball, will be at Target Field on Friday. If the Twins can’t sweep this team… well, who knows how angry I’ll be if that happens, but I’ll temper my comments for the moment and just say it will be downright embarrassing if the Twins drop a game to Gardy’s guys.
After that the Twins hit the road to play the South Siders again. Who knows? Maybe the Twins drop that series, too, which means the cat-and-mouse game with the second-place Cleveland Indians will roll into September. And then things will get real dicey to end the season.
The Twins play mostly AL Central foes next month, including the Indians, but they also play three games at Boston and three at home against the Washington Nationals. I have a feeling the AL Central race won’t be decided until the very end.
Jose Berrios gets the ball Friday.
You can't win every game and you can't win every series, even against bad teams. Still, that was a pretty big letdown from the #MNTwins at home. They're won 1 of 7 series at Target Field since the AS break, despite huge crowds coming out to cheer them on.
— Nick Nelson (@NickNelsonMN) August 21, 2019
Extra innings…
-At least the Twins caught a break on Wednesday. They lost, but so did the Indians, who fell in walk-off fashion to those red-hot New York Mets. The Twins’ AL Central lead still stands at three games.
-Jake Odorizzi took the loss and fell to 13-6. Odo, as we all know, is not the most efficient pitcher. He threw 104 pitches over five innings and allowed four runs (three earned), with a walk and six strikeouts. The bullpen was spotless the rest of the way.
-The White Sox have a losing record against the AL East, AL West and National League, but against the Central, the Pale Hose are 28-25.