The Twins’ owner called season ticketholders in the offseason basically begging for them to stick around. Their fans had become so disillusioned with their team losing that the negativity had started to get to Tom Pohlad. And early in the season, he had a public incident with a fan wearing a SELL THE TEAM hat. Are billionaires sensitive? Between this and Arte Moreno selling the Angels because he got big emotions from fans demanding he sell the team, too, it’s enough to make you wonder where the Giants would be if they had fewer owners.
But the Twins, who had finished 70-92 this season, started off the year in surprisingly great fashion, to the point that by the end of July, they were 56-55 and just 3 games out of the AL Central lead.
They’ve gone 17-28 since.
So, it’s another failed season for the Twins. Giants fans can relate. Well, not really. The Twins have had five winning seasons and four playoff appearances in the past decade. The Giants have had 1 and 1. As of this writing, the two teams are 12th and 13th in wins over the last 10 years… but with a significant split.
In this 45-game that spiraled them out of the playoffs, the pitching has been mediocre but the offense has fallen to below league average (99 wRC+). They’ve lost Byron Buxton to injury once again. Taj Bradley has emerged to mitigate the pre-season loss of Pablo Lopez, but Joe Ryan’s prime seems to have been betrayed by their small window of contention. Their defense has been atrocious: -38.4 Defensive Runs Above Average, 25th in MLB. Don’t get too smug, though. The Giant are 23rd (-34.5). They’re the team the Giants could become if all the prospect excitement fails to pan out and the front office’s grand design busts.
On the other hand, the Giants have sort of gone through this already. Their last rebuild was supposed to usher in a window of contention. It did, but for, like, two seasons (2020 & 2021), and during that time, the San Diego Padres (and, to a lesser extent, the Arizona Diamondbacks) zoomed past them. The Twins were supposed to be NL Central contenders, challenging the Dodgers of that division (the Guardians), only to have the Tigers and now the White Sox (!) zoom past them.
Anyway, the Twins have been bad on the road this year (33-45) while the Giants have been okay (36-39); however, they’ve lost 7 of 9 overall. The roster is a shambles. Bryce Eldridge is in the concussion protocol. It’s all very gloomy here in the final week of the season. Then again, that’s been the status quo for six months.
Series Overview
Who: San Francisco Giants (64-92) vs. Minnesota Twins (73-83)
Where: Oracle Park | San Francisco, California
When: Monday & Tuesday at 6:45pm PT, Wednesday at 12:45pm PT
National broadcasts: None
Projected starters
Monday: Blade Tidwell (RHP 1-2, 4.56 ERA) vs. Zebby Matthews (RHP 9-10, 4.74 ERA)
Tuesday: Anthony Molina (RHP 3-1, 4.18 ERA) vs. Taj Bradley (RHP 11-6, 3.81 ERA)
Wednesday: Cesar Perdomo (LHP 0-1, 3.72 ERA) vs. TBD
Prediction time
Roger Clemens’ son, Kody, has 26 home runs on the season. He’s hit 14 of those on the road. With an outside shot at getting to 30 home runs, I’ll predict that this 30-year old will whack at least one homer in the series. Meanwhile, Jung Hoo Lee is 6 extra base hits away from matching last year’s season total (51). He hit 31 doubles last and has hit 31 this year, too. I predict he’ll pickup a few in this series giving faint hope that he can match last year’s total by having a nice final series when the Giants host the Dodgers.
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