Twins vs. Guardians prediction and odds for Tuesday, Sept. 5 (Expect pitcher's duel)
The Twins are six games up on the Guardians in the AL Central and can extend their lead to eight with a sweep of the Guardians this week.
By Josh Yourish
I think the Minnesota Twins just scored another run. Oh, and there’s another.
The Twins beat the Cleveland Guardians 20-6 yesterday to get to 72-66 and extend their AL Central lead to six games over Cleveland. The Guardians are 66-72.
For Game 2 as the Twins go for the series win on the road, they’ll send Sonny Gray to the mound. Gray is 7-6 with a 2.92 ERA and will be opposed by Tanner Bibee. Bibee comes in with a 10-3 record and a 3.03 ERA in 22 starts.
The Twins can all but lock down the AL Central by winning this series, so I’ll get into my pick, but first check out this promo from the FanDuel Sportsbook. Just click the link below, sign up, deposit $5 then collect $200 in bonus bets win or lose, plus you’ll get $100 off NFL Sunday Ticket.
Now, here are the odds for the Twins and Guardians in Cleveland.
Twins vs. Guardians odds, run line and total
Twins vs. Guardians prediction and pick
After yesterday’s game saw 26 runs scored I think the offense is going to cool quite a bit in this matchup. The starting pitchers are just too good.
Sonny Gray went seven scoreless against Cleveland in his most recent start back on Aug. 30, and only allowed three hits in the 5-2 Cleveland win. Bibee was the other half of that matchup and he went five innings, only giving up two runs on four hits with eight strikeouts.
Bibee has a 57th percentile strikeout rate and a 52nd percentile whiff rate, but he has 14 strikeouts in 10 innings against Minnesota this season because the Twins have struck out more than any other team this year. That really leads to strong outings for Bibee and I think he’ll have another good one today.
Gray on the other side has a 2.89 ERA in three starts against the Guardians this year. His xERA of 3.72 isn’t great, but he has a 100th percentile run value of 31 on his pitches this season.
Even with a 20 run night yesterday the Twins are still only seventh in runs scored in the past 30 days. Their offense has been good, especially since they called up Edouard Julien who has 11 homers and a .370 OBP in 87 games.
However, they are missing Michael A. Taylor, and Byron Buxton right now with both on the 10-day IL. They used up all their runs yesterday and this will be a low-scoring pitcher’s duel.
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Game odds refresh periodically and are subject to change