It would be easy to rip the Twins for tanking, based on the lineup they posted this morning.

I counted six players starting who weren't starters with the Twins at the begnning of the season - most notably their bottom three players.

This was fine over the weekend in Arlington, where the Twins played the out-of-it Rangers. When a team that is not in contention plays a contender, the unwritten rule is that they field their best lineup.

But look at the Twins bench. Eddie Rosario is injured and likely out the entire series. Max Kepler is in a 2-for-16 rut and committed an error yesterday. That leaves Willians Astudillo, Chris Gimenez and Ehrie Adrianza.

Wow. This is what makes September baseball a death march. Non-contenders harvest their roster at the trade deadline, call up players from the minors and start planning offseason vacations. Contenders get to crush them and build momentum. They only thing that could bite Houston is that, for some reason, the Astros are only 37-32 at home.

We'll see.

Twins manager Paul Molitor mentioned today that he didn't think that Byron Buxton was playing for Rochester in today's season finale. Well, that's because he's gone, as I reported in today's editions. Molitor still hasn't spoken with Buxton but plans to reach out to him. I also know of one multi-Gold Glove winner who is trying to catch up with him too.

The Twins will announce after the game who they will have open tomorrow's game. And that's it. They won't announce who will follow the opener but, most likely, will be Kohl Stewart from nearby Tomball.

Happy Labor Day, everyone!


Twins

Joe Mauer, 1B
Logan Forsythe, 2B
Jorge Polanco, SS
Mitch Garver, C
Robbie Grossman, LF
Miguel Sano, 3B
Jake Cave,CF
Tyler Austin, DH
Johnny Field, RF

Kyle Gibson, RHP

Astros

George Springer, CF
Tony Kemp, LF
Alex Bregman, 3B
Carlos Correa, SS
Marwin Gonzalez, 2B
Yuli Gurriel, 1B
Brian McCann, C
Evan Gattis, DH
Josh Reddick, RF

Dallas Keuchel, LHP