Ranking 4 most likely potential Minnesota Twins postseason opponents right now
It's time to start thinking about how the Twins stack up against potential competition in October.
With the MLB season entering its final stretch, it's time to start thinking about how the Minnesota Twins stack up against potential competition in the postseason.
Minnesota is a year away from watching its postseason slump enter its second decade, but for the first time in a while it seems like the team is good enough to end the streak. Starting pitching is s strong suit, there are multiple superstar-level players on the roster, and young players are starting to step up in a big way to make a difference.
We've all talked about it on Twins Twitter, but imagine the team trotting out a lineup that has Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, Royce Lewis, Eduoard Julien, and Matt Wallner in it with Sonny Gray, Pablo Lopez, or Joe Ryan on the mound.
Chef's kiss.
We're still a month away from the postseason picture truly taking shape, but when it does who should the Twins want to see in the Wild Card series?
MLB Playoffs: Ranking potential Twins opponents
4. 2023 Record: 4-2. Playoff Record: 0-2. . . 135. houston. . . team
Of the potential teams the Twins could meet in the Wild Card, the Houston Astros are the only team they have a winning record against.
They're also the team Minnesota probably wants to see least.
We were in almost an identical situation three years ago, with the Twins hosting a Wild Card series and primed to finally end the decade-plus postseason losing streak. In true Minnesota Sports fashion, the Astros snuck into the expanded playoffs and dismantled the Twins in two games on their way to almost making it back to the World Series.
Do we want to tempt the baseball gods like that?
Houston and Minnesota are both seemingly in different places than they were in 2020, but there's something unquantifiable about how cursed the Twins are in October. It's not so much that they are plain bad in the postseason, it's that they find a way to allow teams to become their bully -- the Yankees being the most notable.
There's no sabermetric or statistic to support this superstition, just decades of stepping on rakes like Sideshow Bob.
2023 Record: 3-4. . . 14. . . Playoff Record: 0-0. . 3. Boston
Right now the Boston Red Sox are on the outside of the playoff picture looking in, which would make the Twins drawing them in the Wild Card a bit nerve-racking.
Much like the superstition with the Astros, the last thing the Twins need is to get a team that got hot over the last month of the season and secured a playoff spot at the last minute. Boston is coming off a series sweep over the Yankees in the Bronx and it's safe to say they're feeling themselves.
Minnesota has also had some bad luck against the Red Sox this year. The Twins lost the season series, including a few meltdowns in April that ended up being an omen for how things would go for the rest of the first half. The Twins blew a late lead and then got hammered in a game Kenta Maeda needed to leave early due to injury.
To be fair, Maeda doesn't seem to factor into the Twins Wild Card rotation and Minnesota won games that Joe Ryan and Sonny Gray pitched -- including the last two matchups the teams played.
The problems how inconsistent the Twins have been against Boston, and how much more experienced the Red Sox are in finding ways to win in October. Minnesota shouldn't be afraid or actively avoiding the Red Sox, but it's a less-than-ideal matchup for a team trying to break its postseason curse.
Also, the last thing we need in our lives is that two hands meeting meme where the caption is 'Yankees-Red Sox-Beating the Twins in October'.
. Seattle. . . . . 2. 2023 Record: 3-4. Playoff Record: 0-0. 62
If there's an AL West team the Twins should feel the least amount of anxiety about meeting in October, it's the Seattle Mariners.
Here we'd have the meeting of two horrifically unlucky teams in the postseason in a situation where something has to give. Seattle broke its own long-standing playoff losing streak last year only to have it reinstated a series later. The brutal way the Mariners lost to the Houston Astros in the ALDS provided the sort of pain that Twins fans could feel in their souls.
Seattle is hitting .249 on the road this year and only .236 against right-handed pitchers, which bodes well for the Twins. Minnesota's projected three-man Wild Card rotation is all righties -- Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan, and Pablo Lopez -- and they'd host every game in the first round.
However, the Mariners beat up both Sonny Gray and Pablo Lopez the last time they saw each pitcher which isn't exactly going to fill anyone in Twins Territory with an overabundance of confidence.
What the Twins need to rely on is the offense waking up enough to give Gray and Lopez proper run support which is something that didn't happen in their respective losses. Of course, Minnesota's reliance on the offense not being as putrid as it's been for large stretches of this season is not a strategy exclusive to beating the Mariners, but starting out the postseason with bats getting hot would certainly be a good sign.
Playoff Record: 4-1. . . 39. . . 2023 Record: 3-3. 1. . Toronto
Just about everybody who could come out of the AL East this year is a tough matchup for the Twins, except the Yankees who are currently in the gutter. Of course, with the Twins luck the Yankees would still find a way to beat them in the postseason even though they've been so bad this year.
The Blue Jays are firmly the second-best team in the division and similarly to Boston they're getting hot at the right time. Toronto has the best ERA in the American League which is big trouble for Twins bats that have been known to go ice cold and dead silent at the plate this year.
What the Twins have going for them is their three wins against Toronto came in games where Sonny Gray, Pablo Lopez, and Joe Ryan pitched. The Blue Jays only beat Minnesota in games that Louie Varland and Bailey Ober started, neither of who are expected to be on the rubber as starters in the Wild Card.
One of those losses featured an Emilio Pagan meltdown where he allowed three runs, and even he has started to get a handle on harnessing his own chaos.
Had Minnesota's offense shown up in those losses the way it's shown an ability to, perhaps things break the other way. Pitching seems to be shored up, but the Twins offense has always been a hinge that the postseason swings on. For what it's worth, Minnesota has scored 28 runs against Toronto this season, so it's not outside the realm of possibility that they can have the Blue Jays number in a short series.
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