With six weeks left in the regular season, the Twins are still very much in the middle of the American League race - but the path is crowded, messy and getting no easier.
That was clear enough on Saturday, when Twins manager Derek Shelton had the Chicago White Sox-Detroit Tigers game on the TV in his office and got asked whether he was rooting for one side. His answer fit the moment.
“I mean, no. One of the two’s gotta lose,” he said.
“The worst-case scenario is when teams in our division play each other. If both could lose … that would be awesome.”
The White Sox, who are now the division leaders, took another step forward by sweeping Detroit over the weekend. After Sunday’s games, Chicago was up six games on the Twins and 5 1/2 on the Tigers. The Guardians were still playing when the Pioneer Press went to print, but they too were 5 1/2 games back of the White Sox before their game ended.
FanGraphs entered Sunday with Chicago holding a 53.2% chance to win the division, followed by the Guardians at 17.9%, the Twins at 14.5% and the Tigers at 14.4%.
Minnesota, though, is still closer to the wild card picture than the division race. Even so, FanGraphs gave the Twins a better shot at reaching the postseason by winning the division than by grabbing a wild card spot, with those odds sitting at 8.8%.
Overall, the Twins were at 23.4% to make the playoffs entering Sunday’s finale against the Philadelphia Phillies. That game ended in frustration, a 7-5 loss in which Minnesota blew a five-run lead late.
The reason the wild card route is so tricky is simple: too many teams are packed into too little space. The Yankees and Red Sox were comfortably ahead for the first two wild card spots, but six clubs were separated by just a game and a half for the third.
Those teams are the Rangers, Blue Jays, Orioles, Tigers, Guardians and Twins. None of them is above .500, which leaves the whole chase feeling like a scramble from day to day.
For Minnesota, the message is straightforward. The standings are crowded, the margins are thin and the focus has to stay on the next game.
“It’s just been tough these last few games and it’s just baseball,” starting pitcher Connor Prielipp said after Saturday’s loss. “There’s going to be ups and downs and we’re just in a down right now.”
The schedule doesn’t offer much relief. The Twins open a three-game series on Sunday against the division-leading Atlanta Braves, and Bailey Ober will start the opener against left-hander Martín Pérez, a former Twin.
Former Twins closer Jhoan Duran was also back at Target Field this weekend for the first time since the trade that sent him to Philadelphia, and he said the return felt “really good,” to be back. “I remember when the schedule was out, I turned to my wife and said to her, ‘I want to go to Minnesota.
I can’t wait for that.’” Duran earned the save for the Phillies on Sunday.
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