It almost seems like a cruel joke that the gods would schedule the Minnesota Twins vs. New York Yankees as the country is about to turn 250 years old, but those are the facts as the Twins get set to take on their arch-rival over the weekend.
But here are some more facts: Incredibly — and I must admit I keep checking and re-checking this statistic — the Twins are still the No. 1 run-scoring team in the American League with 429 runs scored, compared to the Yankees at 417 runs.
The big difference, of course, is that the Twins have allowed the second-most runs (455) in the league, while the Yankees have allowed the fewest at 330. The result? The Yanks are 10 games over .500 while the Twins are four games shy of that mark.
And yet the Bronx Bombers have lost seven straight games, slugger Aaron Judge is on the injured list with a right-side rib stress fracture until possibly August and an outbreak of food poisoning has swept through the Yanks’ club house like scurvy on a 17th century schooner.
“We got hit with food poisoning or some kind of bug [Tuesday] night, so we’ve got IVs going and everything today,” manager Aaron Boone told MLB.com. “It’s been an interesting week on a lot of fronts. … I got a lot of messages about overnight stuff from a number of guys.”
The Twins, too, are fresh off a series win over the Houston Astros, beating them 8-3 in the rubber match. Are they going to sweep the Yankees? No, I won’t go that far, but I think they can make it back-to-back series wins.
Rookie Mike Paredes gets the ball opposite crafty veteran Gerrit Cole.
Extra innings…
–The Twins are 42-46. They are four games out of first place in the AL Central and three games back in the Wild Card hunt. The Twins are strangely competitive.
–Wednesday’s win: Taj Bradley fanned 11, Trevor Larnach had three hits and the Twins got home runs from Mr. 3-iron, Josh Bell, as well as Kody Clemens and Luke Keaschall.
–Bradley’s line: One run allowed on four hits with three walks and the 11 strikeouts across five innings on 97 pitches. He improves to 7-3 with a 3.86 ERA. I’ll say it again: nobody saw this coming.
–Funny comment: After Keaschall homered to score the eighth run for the Twins in Wednesday’s win, radio play-by-play voice Kris Atteberry declared it the “insurance run” the team needed to win the game. I know the Twins bullpen is bad, but is it that bad?
–It’s easy to blame a lot on the bullpen, but on Tuesday the loss fell squarely on the shoulders of starter Joe Ryan who turned in his first real stinker of the season. Ryan allowed six runs on six hits, including a home run, with three walks and five strikeouts over just four innings on 91 pitches. He falls to 5-5 with a 3.61 ERA.