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Losers of four straight and six of eight the suddenly reeling Guardians head north to take on baseball’s hottest team, the Minnesota Twins, winners of 13 straight before losing Sunday to Milwaukee. The Twins are 26-21 and in second place in the Central, one-half game ahead of the Guardians and Royals. Suddenly the AL Central has 4 of the 6 best records in the AL. If the season ended today the Tigers would win the division but the Twins, Guardians, and Royals would be the three wild card teams.
The Twins are a completely different team depending on the venue with a record of 15-6 at home and 11-15 on the road. The Guardians are 11-13 on the road. They are 23-14 against right-handed starters and 2-7 against lefties. Fortunately they will face three right-handers this series.
The Guardians are also fortunate that Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa collided chasing a short fly ball and they are both on the 7-day IL with concussions and will miss this series. Buxton leads the Twins every day players in OPS at .834 so his loss is significant. Correa is hitting .236/.605.
On the season the Twins rank 17th in runs per game and 3rd in ERA. They’ve been getting it done mostly with pitching. Their defense is average.
The Twins average 4.71 runs per game at home against 3.72 on the road. They are averaging 4.8 runs per game in May. They rank between 13th and 19th in all major offensive categories except walk percentage where they are 27th. They don’t like to walk so maybe the Guardians can get them to chase.
The Twins were 13-20 before their 13-game win streak came out of nowhere. Six of those wins were against 15-30 Baltimore and only 3 of the wins were against an opponent with a record over .500 (San Francisco).
The Twins have a team ERA of 2.39 in May; best in the majors by far. Next lowest is 2.89. Their bullpen ERA in May is 1.73. It's like all their pitchers got hot at the same time.
Harrison Bader has the highest OPS with Buxton out (.280/.798) followed by Ryan Jeffers (.268/.755). Since the calendar turned to May, Kody Clemens is scorching hot (.321/1.103) along with Bader (.378/.1.007), Christian Vasquez (.296/.832), and Jeffers (.295/.831).
The Twins are on a roll and part of that could be due to a soft spot in the schedule, however, 13 straight is 13 straight and their pitchers are on fire.
The Guardians took 3 of 4 from the Twins in Cleveland just before their streak started with the wins coming by scores of 2-1, 4-2, and 4-3 in 10 innings. These are the kind of scores I expect this series, although the Twins hit better at home.
The matchups:
Monday: Logan Allen vs. Bailey Ober (4-1, 3.72)
Tuesday: Gavin Williams vs. Chris Paddack (2-3, 4.05)
Weds: Tanner Bibee vs. Joe Ryan (4-2, 2.42)
All three of the Twins starters are on a roll. Ober has a 2.36 ERA in his last eight starts after getting rocked in his first start. Paddack has a 2.06 ERA in his last seven starts after a bad first outing. And Ryan has allowed 2 earned runs in his last four starts covering 25 innings. All three have been crazy good lately.
Ober beat the Guardians on April 28 going 7.2 innings and allowing one run. He owns this team. Current Guardian hitters are batting .191/.496 against him. Kwan is 1-for-15 and Naylor 0-for-9. In his last 6 starts against Cleveland he’s allowed 8 earned runs.
Logan Allen is 2-2 with a 3.70 ERA. He has not faced the Twins this year but lifetime they are hitting .296/.757 off him. Lefties are hitting .361/.873 off Allen so he needs to find a better approach. I have no idea why they’ve been so successful against him. Also, with nobody on base opponents have an OBP of .383 against Allen. He’s awful from the windup and way better from the stretch (.222/.596). It’s night and day.
You'd think as a lefty he'd be better against lefties and also better from the windup where he can take his time and focus completely on the hitter, but it's the opposite. It's like he doesn't wake up and start pitching until somebody gets on base.
Most of the Twins' best available hitters are right-handed (France, Jeffers, Bader, Lewis) so that may be to Allen’s advantage. Matt Wallner (.263/.847) is out with a hammy so that’s another break for the Guards.
Carlos Correa is hitting .391/1.156 against lefties and Byron Buxton .346/1.085. These two are by far the Twins’ best hitters against lefties among their regulars so Allen lucked out with both of them being out right when he’s due to start.
It looks like another frustrating game for the Guardians, who managed just 6 runs in 3 games against the Reds and now have to face an even better staff, starting with Bailey Ober. With Buxton and Correa out Logan Allen has a chance to hold down the Twins, who are just average offensively even with these guys. This could be a low scoring game similar to the last three in Cleveland if Allen has a strong outing.
The Twins are a completely different team depending on the venue with a record of 15-6 at home and 11-15 on the road. The Guardians are 11-13 on the road. They are 23-14 against right-handed starters and 2-7 against lefties. Fortunately they will face three right-handers this series.
The Guardians are also fortunate that Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa collided chasing a short fly ball and they are both on the 7-day IL with concussions and will miss this series. Buxton leads the Twins every day players in OPS at .834 so his loss is significant. Correa is hitting .236/.605.
On the season the Twins rank 17th in runs per game and 3rd in ERA. They’ve been getting it done mostly with pitching. Their defense is average.
The Twins average 4.71 runs per game at home against 3.72 on the road. They are averaging 4.8 runs per game in May. They rank between 13th and 19th in all major offensive categories except walk percentage where they are 27th. They don’t like to walk so maybe the Guardians can get them to chase.
The Twins were 13-20 before their 13-game win streak came out of nowhere. Six of those wins were against 15-30 Baltimore and only 3 of the wins were against an opponent with a record over .500 (San Francisco).
The Twins have a team ERA of 2.39 in May; best in the majors by far. Next lowest is 2.89. Their bullpen ERA in May is 1.73. It's like all their pitchers got hot at the same time.
Harrison Bader has the highest OPS with Buxton out (.280/.798) followed by Ryan Jeffers (.268/.755). Since the calendar turned to May, Kody Clemens is scorching hot (.321/1.103) along with Bader (.378/.1.007), Christian Vasquez (.296/.832), and Jeffers (.295/.831).
The Twins are on a roll and part of that could be due to a soft spot in the schedule, however, 13 straight is 13 straight and their pitchers are on fire.
The Guardians took 3 of 4 from the Twins in Cleveland just before their streak started with the wins coming by scores of 2-1, 4-2, and 4-3 in 10 innings. These are the kind of scores I expect this series, although the Twins hit better at home.
The matchups:
Monday: Logan Allen vs. Bailey Ober (4-1, 3.72)
Tuesday: Gavin Williams vs. Chris Paddack (2-3, 4.05)
Weds: Tanner Bibee vs. Joe Ryan (4-2, 2.42)
All three of the Twins starters are on a roll. Ober has a 2.36 ERA in his last eight starts after getting rocked in his first start. Paddack has a 2.06 ERA in his last seven starts after a bad first outing. And Ryan has allowed 2 earned runs in his last four starts covering 25 innings. All three have been crazy good lately.
Ober beat the Guardians on April 28 going 7.2 innings and allowing one run. He owns this team. Current Guardian hitters are batting .191/.496 against him. Kwan is 1-for-15 and Naylor 0-for-9. In his last 6 starts against Cleveland he’s allowed 8 earned runs.
Logan Allen is 2-2 with a 3.70 ERA. He has not faced the Twins this year but lifetime they are hitting .296/.757 off him. Lefties are hitting .361/.873 off Allen so he needs to find a better approach. I have no idea why they’ve been so successful against him. Also, with nobody on base opponents have an OBP of .383 against Allen. He’s awful from the windup and way better from the stretch (.222/.596). It’s night and day.
You'd think as a lefty he'd be better against lefties and also better from the windup where he can take his time and focus completely on the hitter, but it's the opposite. It's like he doesn't wake up and start pitching until somebody gets on base.
Most of the Twins' best available hitters are right-handed (France, Jeffers, Bader, Lewis) so that may be to Allen’s advantage. Matt Wallner (.263/.847) is out with a hammy so that’s another break for the Guards.
Carlos Correa is hitting .391/1.156 against lefties and Byron Buxton .346/1.085. These two are by far the Twins’ best hitters against lefties among their regulars so Allen lucked out with both of them being out right when he’s due to start.
It looks like another frustrating game for the Guardians, who managed just 6 runs in 3 games against the Reds and now have to face an even better staff, starting with Bailey Ober. With Buxton and Correa out Logan Allen has a chance to hold down the Twins, who are just average offensively even with these guys. This could be a low scoring game similar to the last three in Cleveland if Allen has a strong outing.
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