Twins notes: Playing Brewers in April spoils some of the fun

MILWAUKEE – Those Badger-loving, Packer-pushing, cheese-eating invaders from Wisconsin came and went this week, with barely a ripple in the normally fierce rivalry with their neighbors in Minnesota. So much for interleague games stoking the good-natured clashes.

That's what happens when MLB makes the Twins and Brewers condense their traditional series to four games, none of them on the weekend.

"I couldn't figure that one out," manager Paul Molitor, a Brewer during most of his career and a Twin now that he's running a team, said of the non-fan-friendly scheduling. "Traditionally, these series are always very entertaining for fans that go back and forth. Then we put them in April, when school's still in, and you're not going to get big crowds. I'm not sure why they did that."

Well, there's a reason for it, apparently. But "it's complicated," Twins President Dave St. Peter said. "Those who know more about schedules than me have tried to explain why it has to be this way, but I'm not sure I fully understand it."

But he certainly understands the ramifications.

"We hate it," St. Peter said. "I have great respect for the people who manage the schedule. But we hate it, and the Brewers feel the same way. They get busloads of people from Minnesota to come to Miller Park. We get a lot of Brewers fans to come here. It's supposed to be fun, but this schedule gives all of that away."

It's been this way since 2012, and despite complaints from several other teams about rivalry games, will apparently continue for the foreseeable future, St. Peter said, except in every third year (such as 2015), when the two Central divisions are scheduled against each other in interleague play. That's bad enough, St. Peter said, but playing the games in April is something the Twins will lobby to prevent in the future. This year's games are the first April meetings since 1993, when the teams were both in the American League.

"Yeah, I've got some BP pop," Hughes deadpanned about his batting practice show. "But in BP, I'm really just trying to go deep the whole time. And in a game, it's just about not looking foolish, and getting a bunt down if you're asked to."

He'd like to get a hit Saturday in Washington, just so he could stop hearing about his 0-for-15 mark. "Gibby [Kyle Gibson] has one, so he tries to give me a hard time, even though it's like a little flare to right," Hughes joked of his teammate, who actually has two hits in the majors. "I'd like to get my first hit, but I don't lose sleep over it."

The Twins actually have a couple more pitchers with home run power. Ricky Nolasco homered off the Cubs' Sean Marshall while he was a rookie with the Marlins in 2006, and Tommy Milone drove the first pitch he ever saw in the majors over the fence against then-Mets righthander Dillon Gee.

• With no DH, Byung Ho Park was out of the lineup despite hitting home runs in three of his past four games.

"It's going to be tough to get him in," Molitor said. "I'm going to try to find at least one opportunity."