Twins' imposing schedule starting to take its toll

DETROIT – Though the decision not to play Thursday night had nothing to do with baseball, there is an impact on the Twins: It's an unscheduled and unexpected break in their grueling August schedule.

Minnesota is entering the final week of its unprecedented 36-games-in-37-days marathon, and the long slog may be taking a toll. The Twins are a battered lot, with seven players on the injured list and a couple more, like Max Kepler and Alex Avila, trying to avoid it despite minor injuries.

The bullpen, too, has carried a large load this season, with Twins starters averaging only 4.56 innings. Even accounting for four games started by relief pitchers, the Twins still don't average five innings per game; last season, their starters averaged 5.49 innings, third-best in the AL.

"It's been a challenge, but we're doing a really good job of not overworking anybody," righthander Trevor May said.

Still, the normally formidable bullpen — its 3.67 ERA ranks sixth in the American League — had a couple of costly hiccups in Cleveland this week. Jorge Alcala was unable to protect a one-run lead Tuesday, and Sergio Romo couldn't keep Wednesday's game tied in the eighth inning, allowing three runs.

"This has been a run of games unlike anything that I've been a part of. It's been challenging in a lot of ways, but our guys have not made it even more challenging by complaining, or having any overt issues with it," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said Wednesday. "They know we're going to do our best to take care of them physically, mentally. They know it's not going to be a situation where they're going to simply be run out on the field every single day. … We're going to be proactive in every way possible, to make sure we give ourselves the best chance of getting through this."

The bullpen load is having one positive effect, May pointed out: Players like Alcala are experiencing high-intensity situations and learning how to deal with them.

But it's not always the most memorable, most critical moments in a game that help a pitcher learn his craft, May said.

"I've seen Alcala a couple times where he was like, there's things where he felt he wasn't given the best stuff and then he turned it on. He got mad. And then he got out of it and he got really excited," May said. "It was a situation that wasn't like the highest leverage or the biggest of deals, in terms of the game, but it was a big deal to him. So seeing that, I knew exactly how he was feeling. You've got to want it, you've got to want to be in that situation. You've got to like it. And you've got to take the pros and cons and just know that no one is coming to help you out."

With no AL Central teams playing Thursday, the division race was frozen in place: The Twins in first place, but only one-half game ahead of the White Sox and Indians. In a normal season, it would set up a terrific September showdown, with one or even two teams in danger of missing the postseason.

This year? It would take an epic collapse for one of the three to fail to qualify for one of the eight berths available.

But that doesn't mean the competition won't matter to the players, Tyler Clippard said. Trying to win the division could be a benefit once it's time to try to win a postseason series.