After beating Daniel Norris on Friday, the Twins are 24-23 against lefthanded starters this season. They have another one on the mound tonight in Matthew Boyd - who presents a different challenge.

Boyd is 6-10, 5.33, but took a no-hitter into the ninth inning in his last on Saturday against the White Sox before Tim Anderson broke it up with two outs. When he's on, Boyd can take advantage of aggressive hitters like the Twins have. He's faced the Twins four times this season, going 2-0 with a 3.68 ERA. Twins fans will remember the April 22 game at Target Field in which Boyd threw behind Miguel Sano, touching off a benches-clearing incident that lead to Sano receiving a one-game suspension.

There has been no bad blood between the teams since, but the Tigers might be itching for payback after losing the first two games of this series.

The Twins are not adverse to this lefty, and have their standard lineup in play. That's because lefties are hitting .329 against Boyd with a .400 on base percentage. Righthanders slug better against him, .481 to .429 for lefties, which leads to about the same OPS, .830 for righties and .829 for lefties.

The Angels already have lost to Houston 6-2. That's six straight losses. The Rangers are at the A's, first pitch at 8 p.m.

In other news:

Only Bartolo Colon is listed as a starter for the upcoming series in Cleveland. Twins manager Paul Molitor said that spent considerable time on Saturday discussing the rotation over the last week of the season. They could try to bring Kyle Gibson back a day early sometime next week to get him two starts. It's easy to see why. Gibson is 7-3 with a 3.57 ERA since the All-Star break, the most wins and lowest ERA of any starter. As the Twins try to lock down the second wild card, they have to put the right pitchers in line to make it happen. The odds are that they go Colon-Mejia-Santana against Cleveland. We'll see.

Cleveland, for now, will start Josh Tomlin on Tuesday and Danny Salazar on Wednesday.

Miguel Sano is only receiving treatment on his injured shin. No baseball activities for now, which pretty much confirms that he will not be able to play if the Twins reach the wild card round. He's missed over a month of games and has not been able to run. He's going to continue to undergo treatment in case the Twins can play beyond the first round and he takes a turn for the better. But I would not count on him.

The Twins have spent recent days scouting potential playoff opponents in the American League. For instance, Vern Followell, their pro scouting coordinator, is following Cleveland. Jeremy Hefner, who does advance work through video, will also assist.


Twins

Brian Dozier, 2B
Joe Mauer, 1B
Jorge Polanco, SS
Eddie Rosario, LF
Eduardo Escobar, 3B
Byron Buxton, CF
Max Kepler, RF
Robbie Grossman, DH
Jason Castro, C

Matthew Boyd, LHP

Tigers

Ian Kinsler, 2B
Alex Presley, DH
Miguel Cabrera, 1B
Nicholas Castellanos, RF
Jeimer Candelario, 3B
Bryan Holaday, C
Andrew Romine, LF
JaCoby Jones, CF
Jose Iglesias, SS

Ervin Santana, RHP