ALDS: NY vs MIN

jon abbey

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I will fix the title if NY catches HOU or CLE catches MIN but I had to share the quick research I just did on the Twins' starters. I knew that the now suspended Pineda had been their best SP in recent months, but wow look at these recent numbers for I think the only four real candidates they have to start with Pineda out.

=========================

Jose Berrios: 6.15 ERA allowed since the start of August, 52.2 innings and a .845 OPS allowed.

Jake Odorizzi: He has been pretty solid all year and he faced NY twice this season. On May 4 in NY, he threw six shutout innings albeit against a lineup with four of the nine likely in the ALDS, no Judge, Stanton, Encarnacion, Didi or Urshela. On July 24 in MIN, he faced a decidedly better lineup, with all of those five except Stanton in there, and he got shellacked for his worst game score of the season, 4 10 9 9 2 7.

Martin Perez: 6.84 ERA allowed since the start of August, 48.2 innings and a .925 OPS allowed.

Kyle Gibson: 7.14 ERA allowed since the start of August, 40.1 innings and a .940 OPS allowed.

=========================

NY has announced their rotation for the final weekend as Paxton, Severino, Tanaka, so that is almost certainly their #1-3 in order, and both Happ and CC have been told they will come out of the pen, so the 4th spot will be a bullpen game of some kind. Happ has been good the last month (2.30 ERA in his last five starts combined, just 16 hits in 27.1 innings) so I would think that spot is just Chad Green into Happ into the back end guys, but I guess we'll see. If NY was down 2-1, they could go to Green/Paxton/back end in game 4 and then Severino on full rest in game 5.

=========================

Friday, Oct. 4: ??? @Paxton
Saturday, Oct. 5: ??? @Severino

Monday, Oct. 7: Tanaka @???
Tuesday, Oct. 8: Green/Happ (?) @???

Thursday, Oct. 10: ??? @Paxton
 

Murderer's Crow

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Complete reverse lock and it scares the living crap out of me to face Minnesota. Logic goes out the window and we know that Minnesota can absolutely punish pitching.

Also, we won an epic game vs them this year, one of the best games I've ever watched. You know the last time that happened? 2004 vs the Red Sox.
 

Leather

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Anything can happen in a 5 game series, but the fact that the first two games are in NY tells me this is coming back to MIN with the Twins down 0-2 so, yea. I see Yanks in 4.

It's a real goddamn shame the Twins didn't pick up a legit #1 or even #2 starter at the deadline. If they had one, they would have a chance to at least make it to the ALCS for the first time in nearly 30 years. But the ownership sucks, so there you go.
 

Murderer's Crow

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Anything can happen in a 5 game series, but the fact that the first two games are in NY tells me this is coming back to MIN with the Twins down 0-2 so, yea. I see Yanks in 4.

It's a real goddamn shame the Twins didn't pick up a legit #1 or even #2 starter at the deadline. If they had one, they would have a chance to at least make it to the ALCS for the first time in nearly 30 years. But the ownership sucks, so there you go.
Them and 9 other teams looking for a legit #1 or #2 failed. But it actually feels like the teams were correct for not overpaying. Greinke has been good but not dominant. Stroman is pitching to a 1.4+ whip since joining the Mets. Matt Boyd had a sky high price and has regressed into a useless (for a playoff team) pitcher. I'm not sure any difference makers were made available.
 

jon abbey

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The Twins definitely could have used Stroman, they don't need aces but just guys to not get blasted while their offense puts up lots of runs. But TOR made a ludicrous request from MIN, MIN rightly turned them down, and then they never came back to them after they got two SPs they liked from the Mets, even though MIN could have pretty easily topped that offer and likely would have. Brodie the Disruptor strikes again, even if he is mostly disrupting the already disrupted Mets.

The Twins lineup is scary, led by Cruz and Sano. Buxton is definitely done for the year, a blow to the lineup but an even bigger blow to their defense. Kepler is also hurting as is Cron, but their lineup is still quite deep without those guys.
 

Marciano490

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The Twins definitely could have used Stroman, they don't need aces but just guys to not get blasted while their offense puts up lots of runs. But TOR made a ludicrous request from MIN, MIN rightly turned them down, and then they never came back to them after they got two SPs they liked from the Mets, even though MIN could have pretty easily topped that offer and likely would have. Brodie the Disruptor strikes again, even if he is mostly disrupting the already disrupted Mets.

The Twins lineup is scary, led by Cruz and Sano. Buxton is definitely done for the year, a blow to the lineup but an even bigger blow to their defense. Kepler is also hurting as is Cron, but their lineup is still quite deep without those guys.
You forgot my boy Rosario, though he’s been quieter in the second half.

I wonder if part of the reason the Twins didn’t push harder for a starter was the fact that, as you noted in you OP, Berrios was pitching much better at the time.
 

jon abbey

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I wasn't really going into the MIN lineup, just the scariest two plus guys currently hurt, but the main guy I left off is Mitch Garver and his 31 HRs in 303 ABs (!!).

Jack Curry with some good research, NY has really been able to give their best relievers a lot of rest recently. I knew they hadn't been pitching much but these pitch counts are impressively low:

"Yanks are 24-0 when Big 4 relievers all pitch in a game. We've mentioned on postgame how they've prioritized rest down the stretch. Their recent and very low pitch totals:

Chapman-21 pitches in last 11 days.
Britton-14 in last 10.
Ottavino-25 in last 10.
Kahnle-35 in his last 10"
 

jon abbey

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HOU clinched the top seed tonight, so this matchup is definite now, two 100 win/300 HR hitting teams.
 

Leather

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Well I’ll be at game 3, rooting against the Yankees in the playoffs with my son. Welcome to life, kid.
 

jon abbey

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This is I think a better Twins team than any of the editions below, but still the recent history is worth noting/spelling out:

"The Yankees, who learned Friday night they will host the Twins in the ALDS, knocked the Twins out of the playoffs in 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2017.

Minnesota has played 15 postseason games against the Yankees since 2003 and over that span they have won just two games."
 
Jul 5, 2018
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This is I think a better Twins team than any of the editions below, but still the recent history is worth noting/spelling out:

"The Yankees, who learned Friday night they will host the Twins in the ALDS, knocked the Twins out of the playoffs in 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2017.


Minnesota has played 15 postseason games against the Yankees since 2003 and over that span they have won just two games."
2010 is recent history, but not a single player from that team is still with the Twins. The 2010 Yankees won 95 games and Houston won 76, but it's not going to give the Yankees the edge in the ALCS this year.
 

terrynever

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2010 is recent history, but not a single player from that team is still with the Twins. The 2010 Yankees won 95 games and Houston won 76, but it's not going to give the Yankees the edge in the ALCS this year.
Heck, I was hoping past history was the decisive criterion. Let’s just skip past the Twins and get to it with Houston. I still don’t know why the Astros caved against Boston last year.
 

BaseballJones

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This is I think a better Twins team than any of the editions below, but still the recent history is worth noting/spelling out:

"The Yankees, who learned Friday night they will host the Twins in the ALDS, knocked the Twins out of the playoffs in 2003, 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2017.

Minnesota has played 15 postseason games against the Yankees since 2003 and over that span they have won just two games."
Good grief the Yanks are going to annihilate the Twins because they always do, no matter what.
 

BaseballJones

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Heck, I was hoping past history was the decisive criterion. Let’s just skip past the Twins and get to it with Houston. I still don’t know why the Astros caved against Boston last year.
Last year’s Red Sox were one of the best teams of all time, that’s why. They basically kicked everyone’s ass: Astros, Yankees, and Dodgers. This year....different story of course.
 

jon abbey

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I fully expect the Twins to tank, they always seem to do that against the Yankees.
Good grief the Yanks are going to annihilate the Twins because they always do, no matter what.
Can we keep these comments to a minimum in this thread? I don't think we need to ignore the history here, which is why I posted it, but this Twins team is better than any of those previous ones, as I said earlier.
 

jon abbey

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Last year’s Red Sox were one of the best teams of all time, that’s why. They basically kicked everyone’s ass: Astros, Yankees, and Dodgers. This year....different story of course.
Also HOU was dealing with some serious injuries in that ALCS, Altuve and McCullers had surgery right afterwards and Correa's back was hurting so much he had trouble walking at times (this has now flared up again to the point where he is currently uncertain for this year's ALDS). This doesn't take anything away from BOS's incredible 2018 season, you can only play the teams in front of you, but it does help explain what happened to HOU.
 

SemperFidelisSox

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Just speculation.

Game 1: Paxton vs Berrios
Game 2: Tanaka vs Odorizzi

Game 3 will be interesting. The Twins will likely go with a bullpen game, with someone like Gibson as the opener.
 

jon abbey

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Just speculation.

Game 1: Paxton vs Berrios
Game 2: Tanaka vs Odorizzi

Game 3 will be interesting. The Twins will likely go with a bullpen game, with someone like Gibson as the opener.
Tanaka has big home/road splits but a lot of that is the silly London outing and the beating the Sox put on him at Fenway. Not saying to ignore those, but after the Fenway game, Tanaka was finally convinced he needed to tweak his splitter grip given the new baseballs, and he has been decidedly better since that.

Which is to say, I think the most likely alignment is the way NY has lined them up this weekend, Paxton then Severino then Tanaka then Happ (with Chad Green likely opening). How Severino and Tanaka look tonight and tomorrow could affect that too, Severino is aiming for 90 pitches tonight.
 

moonshotmanny

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Can we keep these comments to a minimum in this thread? I don't think we need to ignore the history here, which is why I posted it, but this Twins team is better than any of those previous ones, as I said earlier.
It isn't just past Twins history for me. Your team is something otherworldly. All the injuries you had all year, and yet you guys didn't miss a beat. Different players stepped up when they needed to when your big guns went down. I fully expect that for the playoffs.
 

terrynever

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Last year’s Red Sox were one of the best teams of all time, that’s why. They basically kicked everyone’s ass: Astros, Yankees, and Dodgers. This year....different story of course.
A great team that dominated the playoffs. Reminded me of the 1998 Yankees, who added two more titles and then lost in Game 7 of 2001 WS. Boston’s demise and reasons for it have been well-covered on SOSH.
 

Wingack

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Tanaka has big home/road splits but a lot of that is the silly London outing and the beating the Sox put on him at Fenway. Not saying to ignore those, but after the Fenway game, Tanaka was finally convinced he needed to tweak his splitter grip given the new baseballs, and he has been decidedly better since that.

Which is to say, I think the most likely alignment is the way NY has lined them up this weekend, Paxton then Severino then Tanaka then Happ (with Chad Green likely opening). How Severino and Tanaka look tonight and tomorrow could affect that too, Severino is aiming for 90 pitches tonight.
What is Tanaka's ERA against everyone but the Red Sox? Because he got smoked by them for a couple games this year.
 

jon abbey

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What is Tanaka's ERA against everyone but the Red Sox? Because he got smoked by them for a couple games this year.
8 IP, 22 ERs in 3 games against BOS (a 24.75 ERA)
171 IP, 67 ERs in 28 games against everyone else (a 3.53 ERA, which would be 6th best in the AL in between Giolito and Minor)
 

jon abbey

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Luis Arraez taken off the field on a cart today after a collision with Astudillo, but now they’re saying it’s just a sprained ankle.
 

jon abbey

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Similarly to Encarnacion, Kepler doesn't have an AB since 9/14 but is hoping/expecting to be back for ALDS game 1 on Friday:

"The Twins believe Max Kepler will return to action for Friday’s playoff opener as he continues to progress. Kepler, who has been out since the Sept. 14 doubleheader at Cleveland with a sore scapula muscle in his shoulder, threw on the field in front of Leo before Saturday’s game. He also has participated in several recent batting practices and has informed the Twins he’s pleased with his progress.

“Max has been doing very well,” Baldelli said. “The reports have been very positive. I think he personally is becoming very optimistic about this upcoming week. When we see him very optimistic, that allows us to be optimistic.”"

https://theathletic.com/1249545/2019/09/28/tough-moment-casts-doubt-over-playoff-availability-of-twins-luis-arraez/ (pay)
 

jon abbey

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Hate mid-afternoon starts, the shadows mess everything up for like 3 innings.

Pretty nervous about this series and ready to get going with it too.
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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Maybe I’m crazy, or maybe it’s the Yankee hatred, but I don’t think this series is the cake walk many think it’ll be for the Yanks. Twins have a solid lineup, and while their SP leaves something to be desired, the Yanks rotation isn’t all that spectacular itself.

Obviously the Yankees have the HUGE bullpen advantage - they had many injuries this year, and in typical Yankee fashion the fill ins played other worldly, but the 4 main bullpen guys have been healthy all year and are now well rested.

I still think the Yanks win, but I think the Twins give them a series.
 

Murderer's Crow

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On the roster question - though it won't be finalized until probably tomorrow, here is my best guess

1) Paxton
2) Severino
3) Tanaka
4) Happ
5) CC
6) Chapman
7) Britton
8) Green
9) Kahnle
10) Otto

11) DJL
12) Torres
13) Didi
14) Urshela
15) Gardner
16) Judge
17) Stanton
18) Sanchez
19) Romine (backup C)
20) Wade (for speed and multi-position eligibility)

21) Cessa
22) Encarnacion (if healthy)
23) Loaisiga
24) Gearrin over Cortes (coin flip here)
25) Ford over Voit and Maybin
 

jon abbey

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13 pitchers is too many IMO, 2 of 3 of Ford/Voit/Maybin, replacing that Gearrin/Cortes spot.
 

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Maybe I’m crazy, or maybe it’s the Yankee hatred, but I don’t think this series is the cake walk many think it’ll be for the Yanks.
I don't think it is a cake walk at all. I don't think the history between the two teams mean a damn thing. Both teams can mash. Neither team has a dominant starting rotation. Pretty much anything can happen over five game or less.

I do think the Yankees will win. Hopefully HFA and a better bullpen can make a difference.
 

Murderer's Crow

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13 pitchers is too many IMO, 2 of 3 of Ford/Voit/Maybin, replacing that Gearrin/Cortes spot.
I kind of agree but the offense of the Twins scares me a bit. If you get in a blowout game, you want that extra pitcher. To me, that's more likely to happen than needing Maybin when you already have Wade.
 

jon abbey

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NY rotation will be Paxton, Tanaka, Severino in that order, and CC will not be on the roster as he is hurt again. He had yet another cortisone shot in the hopes of being available if NY advances.
 

jon abbey

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If they're looking for an effective inning eater for a lopsided game to replace CC's spot, I hope they consider Mike King, he can give you both length and effectiveness.
 

terrynever

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Was there ever an “easy” series with the Twins? Yankees always won but Santana was in his prime in the early years. Game 1s were usually tough.
The team with the most home runs ever in MLB is a big threat. This is a white-knuckle series in the making and a reminder that diehard fans always endure a few minor strokes in October, win or lose.
 

tims4wins

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Was there ever an “easy” series with the Twins? Yankees always won but Santana was in his prime in the early years. Game 1s were usually tough.
The team with the most home runs ever in MLB is a big threat. This is a white-knuckle series in the making and a reminder that diehard fans always endure a few minor strokes in October, win or lose.
2003 ALDS: Yankees in 4. Twins won game 1 3-1, then lost 4-1, 3-1, and 8-1. So a couple tight games. Not a total breeze for the Yankees.
2004 ALDS: Yankees in 4. Twins won game 1 2-0, then lost 7-6 (12 innings), 8-4, and 6-5 (11 innings). That was a tight series.
2009 ALDS: Yankees in 3. Game 1 7-2, game 2 4-3 (11 innings), game 3 4-1. So it was a sweep with one extra innings game and another close-ish game
2010 ALDS: Yankees in 3. Game 1 6-4, game 2 5-2, game 3 6-1. Pretty easy series.

The Twins played the Yankees competitively back in 2003-2004 and probably should have won one or both series if they didn't $&#@ the bed a couple times. But overall it is what it is: Yankees have won 12 games, Twins have won 2, thus the perception that the Twins have rolled over.

Edit: they also lost the 2017 WC game 8-4, after taking a 3-0 lead in the top of the first. More bed $&#@-ing.
 

TheDivision

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Yeah, this is a different type of Twins team with a much more dangerous lineup, and anything can happen as MIL and OAK can attest.
 

jon abbey

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Not sure who this helps if anyone, but the temperature in NYC has dropped 30 or 40 degrees since yesterday and is supposed to be around 50 tomorrow for gametime (it was in the low 90s here yesterday).
 

jon abbey

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Berrios starting game 1 as expected, I think that's all MIN has announced so far.
 

jon abbey

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NY will announce their roster tomorrow, last-minute guess:

game 1 lineup vs. Berrios:

LeMahieu 1B
Judge RF
Gardner CF (5 for 10 with a walk career vs Berrios. 1.145 OPS)
Stanton LF
Encarnacion DH
Torres 2B
Gregorius SS (3 for 8 with a homer and two walks career vs Berrios, 1.375 OPS)
Sanchez C
Urshela 3B

bench: Maybin, Wade, Romine, Ford (sorry Luke)

Paxton
Tanaka
Severino

Green/Happ

Tarpley
Loaisiga
Cessa
Ottavino
Kahnle
Britton
Chapman

Two notes: 1) that has to be the best lineup NY has had all season and 2) the long man in a blowout question above is relevant but I think that might just be Happ for the first three games and then everyone available for 4/5 if needed. I don't think they will do this but Michael King in Tarpley's spot would be a good emergency innings eater IMO despite only one MLB appearance so far.