CLEVELAND — Rocco Baldelli denies it, but if you looked at the Twins’ lineup today, you might think Minnesota had clinched the AL Central championship last night.
And OK, they sort of did. With a 5 1/2 game lead and only 14 games left, even if the Twins win only half of their games against the Royals (seven remain) and Tigers (three), teams headed for 100-loss seasons, and no other games, the Indians would need to go 10-3 just to force a one-game playoff. Yeah, Saturday’s doubleheader was that decisive.
The Twins didn’t celebrate afterward, there were no champagne showers or anything. But as if to practice for when there are, many of the Twins’ veterans are sitting out today’s series finale at Progressive Field.
The list starts with Jose Berrios, of course, who was supposed to face Shane Bieber in what would have been quite a showdown had the teams split on Saturday, or the Twins’ best chance of salvaging a win had the doubleheader gone badly. Instead, Baldelli has the righthander on a six-day pace as they head to the postseason, a schedule that helped Berrios work out of a slump last year that sort of resembled this year’s.
Then there’s the lineup: No Nelson Cruz, Max Kepler, Mitch Garver or Jorge Polanco. Jake Cave returns from his groin injury, Willians Astudillo gives the regular catchers a day off, and Ronald Torreyes gets his first start as a Twin. Baldelli said the spring-training lineup had more to do with injuries than the AL Central standings, but let’s just say that yesterday’s results gave him plenty more options Sunday.
The Twins still want to win Sunday’s game, which for one thing, would give them the season series for the first time since 2015; they are 9-9 against Cleveland right now. Doing so would probably require tagging Bieber with more runs than he’s accustomed to giving up. The Indians’ righthander has allowed more than three runs in a start only once since early June.
But they have the luxury of shrugging it off if they don’t.
Here are the lineups for today’s series finale:
TWINS
Arraez DH
Sano 3B
Cave RF
Rosario LF
Astudillo C
Schoop 2B
Wade CF
Cron 1B
Torreyes SS
Dobnak RHP
INDIANS
Lindor SS
Mercado CF
Santana 1B
Puig RF
Kipnis 2B
Reyes DH
Allen LF
Perez C
Flaherty 3B
Bieber RHP
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La Velle E. Neal III has covered baseball for the Star Tribune since 1998 (the post-Knoblauch era). Born and raised in Chicago, he grew up following the White Sox and hating the Cubs. He attended both the University of Illinois and Illinois-Chicago and began his baseball writing career at the Kansas City Star. He can be heard occasionally on KFAN radio, lending his great baseball mind to Paul Allen and other hosts.
Phil Miller covered three seasons of Twins baseball, but that was at a different ballpark for a different newspaper. Now Miller returns to the baseball beat after joining the Star Tribune as the Gopher football writer in 2010, and he won't miss the dingy dome for a minute. In addition to the Twins and Gophers, Miller covered the Utah Jazz and the NBA for six years at The Salt Lake Tribune.
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