Minnesota Twins series preview: Twins need to take advantage against White Sox

The Minnesota Twins will host the Chicago White Sox this week, beginning a two-week stretch where they’ll face the bottom of the AL Central.

The Minnesota Twins have navigated through the toughest part of their schedule in the past couple of months. While having to play some of the better teams in baseball and some foreign competition from the National League, the Twins have slumped back toward the Cleveland Indians in the American League Central after holding an 11 1/2 game lead in early June.

While the Twins play has dropped off in some areas, one key way that the Indians forced their way back into the division race was by beating up on the lesser teams within their division. Since facing that massive deficit on June 2, the Indians have played 23 of their past 64 games against the Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals.

Those three teams make up the bottom half of the AL Central and the Indians have played them accordingly, posting a 20-3 record in those games. That helped fuel Cleveland’s charge to meet and even take the lead from the Twins, but their schedule gets much harder down the stretch.

Just like the Indians had the opportunity to catch up to the Twins thanks to those games, the Twins will have the same chance over the next two weeks beginning with Monday’s opener with the White Sox. With alternating series with Chicago and the Tigers over that time frame, the Twins have a chance to blow the central division wide open as they head into the final month of the season.