In Second Half, Buckle Up for Closest AL Central Race Since 2017

[Melissa Berman]

You didn’t really think it was going to be that easy, did you?

Early on in the season, the Twins sat comfortably atop the division, and it looked like they were primed to run away with the lead. In late May, the Twins led the AL Central by as many as 5.5 games over the Chicago White Sox and 7.0 games over the Cleveland Guardians. But that was many Dollar Dog Nights ago, and there was almost a whole season’s worth of baseball left.

 

Though the Twins have mostly continued to sit atop the AL Central standings, after some injuries and a few tough series, culminating with an ugly “blowup series” vs the White Sox right before the All-Star Break, the Twins now have a 1.5-game lead over the Guardians and a 3.5-game lead over the White Sox. 

For the first time in years, the AL Central has a bona fide three-team division race on its hands at the All-Star Break. Even further, currently, the AL Central features the closest division race in baseball by far; there are no other divisions that, as of now, feature a viable three-team race. In three other divisions, the second place team trails by double digits. 

To get an idea of just how competitive this year's division is, I dug into the AL Central division's standings, working backwards until I found another season that featured a similarly-competitive race at the halfway point.

At the 2021 All-Star Break, the White Sox were atop the division, followed by Cleveland at 8.0 games back, and the Tigers and Twins were tied for 3rd in the division at 15 games back, (but no need to speak any more of the 2021 Twins).

2020 was the 60-game season with no All Star Break, and over the course of such a short season, it was difficult for teams across the league to get far apart in the division standings, even at the year's end.

At the 2019 All Star Break, the Twins led the division, followed by Cleveland 5.5 games back, then the White Sox at 12.5 games back.

In 2018, Cleveland led, followed by the Twins and Tigers at 7.5 and 12.5 games respectively. 

Finally, a close AL Central race can be found in 2017, where Cleveland was on top, followed by the Twins 1.5 games back, the Royals at 3.0, and the Tigers at 6.0. A four-horse race!

This season, could the Twins (God forbid), White Sox or Guardians fade and finish the season 12 games back? Certainly; year-end standings often feature two division teams within a few games of each other but very rarely are there three teams that finish within a few games (last year in 2021, there no were such instances of this). But for now, in the AL Central, all three of these top teams remain very much alive.

Perhaps the most entertaining AL Central storyline to follow so far has been the saga of the White Sox. White Sox fans have gone from proclaiming that the “season’s over” in June and chanting “Fire Tony” at games to experiencing a rebirth of sorts. They are now nipping at the Twins and Guardians' heels, much to the relief of their fans, who entered this season with high expectations following a 2021 season in which the White Sox won the division with their most wins as a franchise since 2005. For now, the on-field errors have become less numerous and the Tony La Russa criticism has quieted. You know the old adage of "winning solves everything?"

Tigers and Royals, well, we know how being in your position feels; both teams have steadily been about 12 games back of the division lead almost the whole season. If nothing else, they are consistent. We’ll see you next year. 

But for the rest of the teams, it should be a fun second half of the season. As much as I, a Twins fan, would love to see the Twins run away with the division, until then it is fun to watch a competitive race and to "scoreboard watch" what the Guardians and White Sox are doing every night. Buckle up, here we go!

 

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[Peter]

No it’s not fun to scoreboard watch-I soo hope the twins get on long winning streak and put away division!!!! Forget about close race until last game of season. 

[Mark G]

It will be interesting down the stretch, too, because exactly half of our remaining games, and 23 out of the last 26 are against the division.  

I fear Cleveland more than Chicago because of their starting rotation and their closer; both better than either us or Chicago, at least before any trades that may come.  Stay tuned on that front.

[Whitey333]

I've been confused about the Twins all year.  You never know what team is going to show up.  Twins are 3-7 in last 10 games giving up 68 runs.  What was very disheartening was the beat down from White Sox.  Twins had no energy.  They looked awful.  We need to win both the games this weekend in Detroit.  Chicago has the easiest schedule over the last 4-5 weeks.  Twins are like 23-29 in their last 52 games.  This is more indicative of their play.  Lately the pitching has been terrible.  Many stretches the offense goes missing in action.  They are only an average fielding team.  Their baserunning ranks amongst the worst in all of baseball.  Twins also don't steal bases and can't throw out would be base stealers.  Twins bullpen has given up 55 homeruns.  Way too many.  The ERA us around 5.15 good for 25th out of the 30 teams.  They show stretches where they play good baseball and other stretches where they are just awful.  This team has so many holes and flaws.  Guess we should feel lucky we are in such a terrible division.  We are in first place but not a first place calibre team!

[Karbo]

Unless the FO can pull off a few deadline trades for pitching,( at least 2 setup guys for the pen and hopefully a starter) I can see an end of season fade or even collapse.

[Twins_Fan_For_Life]

I see Robert was placed on the IL yesterday.   That really hurts the Whities.  He's kind of their Buxton.  

[Nine of twelve]

6 minutes ago, Karbo said:

Unless the FO can pull off a few deadline trades for pitching,( at least 2 setup guys for the pen and hopefully a starter) I can see an end of season fade or even collapse.

The bad news is that the Twins will not be trading for three impact pitchers. The price would be too high. The good news is that nobody else will be trading for three impact pitchers. The price would be too high.

[Melissa Berman]

1 hour ago, Mark G said:

It will be interesting down the stretch, too, because exactly half of our remaining games, and 23 out of the last 26 are against the division.  

I fear Cleveland more than Chicago because of their starting rotation and their closer; both better than either us or Chicago, at least before any trades that may come.  Stay tuned on that front.

Super great point about the schedule. It will be interesting to see what happens this weekend too with the White Sox vs Guardians series. Not even quite sure who to pull for in that one 

[USAFChief]

10 minutes ago, Melissa Berman said:

Super great point about the schedule. It will be interesting to see what happens this weekend too with the White Sox vs Guardians series. Not even quite sure who to pull for in that one 

One thing that happened is Cleveland beat the Sox last night so the Twins lead is 1.5 and 3.5, rather than 2 and 3.

[Blyleven2011]

2 hours ago, USAFChief said:

One thing that happened is Cleveland beat the Sox last night so the Twins lead is 1.5 and 3.5, rather than 2 and 3.

I thought the same thing when looking at standings that it might not be right   .....

Some good in the second half will be ,  

Good days and bad days of twins baseball ....

Players impressing  , and players that are depressing  especially the dumpster diving pitchers they keep signing  , they signed another yester , Feliz  .....

[Blyleven2011]

Nice article Melissa  ,, nice write up and I appreciate that you spell out your words and no abbreviation  ...

Let's hope the remaing 68 games are exciting   , but either way you look at it .... it's way better than they played last season  ....  go twins 

[Doctor Gast]

I hope this FO has learned from 2017. After trading for Garcia, the Twins dipped which spooked the FO and went on a selling spree and we still made the playoffs.

[Melissa Berman]

3 hours ago, USAFChief said:

One thing that happened is Cleveland beat the Sox last night so the Twins lead is 1.5 and 3.5, rather than 2 and 3.

Thanks so much-updated!! I wrote this a couple days ago and it went out today ?

[Nine of twelve]

54 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

I hope this FO has learned from 2017. After trading for Garcia, the Twins dipped which spooked the FO and went on a selling spree and we still made the playoffs.

Be careful about using 2017 as a benchmark for how to approach roster management. That year was an extreme outlier for the AL. There were two outstanding teams, two good teams, two bad teams, and nine mediocre teams. The Twins just happened to be the one of the nine mediocre ones that surfaced for the postseason berth, more by process of elimination than anything.

That said, this year is shaping up in a similar way. There are two outstanding teams, four or five teams out of the running, with the remaining eight or nine teams in the fair-to-mediocre range competing for four postseason berths. The possibilities are wide open. 

[chinmusic]

6 hours ago, Peter said:

No it’s not fun to scoreboard watch-

The way I see it, as long as we're scoreboard watching, we're still relevant!

[USAFChief]

1 hour ago, Melissa Berman said:

Thanks so much-updated!! I wrote this a couple days ago and it went out today ?

Only reason I happen to know this is I was at Guaranteed Rate Field last night.

Comerica tonight.

[Doctor Gast]

1 hour ago, Nine of twelve said:

Be careful about using 2017 as a benchmark for how to approach roster management. That year was an extreme outlier for the AL. There were two outstanding teams, two good teams, two bad teams, and nine mediocre teams. The Twins just happened to be the one of the nine mediocre ones that surfaced for the postseason berth, more by process of elimination than anything.

That said, this year is shaping up in a similar way. There are two outstanding teams, four or five teams out of the running, with the remaining eight or nine teams in the fair-to-mediocre range competing for four postseason berths. The possibilities are wide open. 

2017 is an excellent example of not giving up on a team that has a chance to progress in the post season. 2021 Braves was in about same position as the 2017 Twins and they added key players to fill their holes and they became the 2021 WS champs.

In life we need to learn from mistakes, we have a very good team with a very bad and over relied BP and an overextended rotation because long relief is nonexistant. If we fill our holes, totally change our mindset about long relief and get hot we can compete with any team. We have a few redundant players that can be used in any trade we need. Hording players will never take us anywhere. If we don't make a legit move this year we'll never do it.

[Mark G]

Well, Cleveland won this afternoon, too.  Let the score board watching begin.  

[tarheeltwinsfan]

On 7/23/2022 at 9:28 AM, Whitey333 said:

I've been confused about the Twins all year.  You never know what team is going to show up.  Twins are 3-7 in last 10 games giving up 68 runs.  What was very disheartening was the beat down from White Sox.  Twins had no energy.  They looked awful.  We need to win both the games this weekend in Detroit.  Chicago has the easiest schedule over the last 4-5 weeks.  Twins are like 23-29 in their last 52 games.  This is more indicative of their play.  Lately the pitching has been terrible.  Many stretches the offense goes missing in action.  They are only an average fielding team.  Their baserunning ranks amongst the worst in all of baseball.  Twins also don't steal bases and can't throw out would be base stealers.  Twins bullpen has given up 55 homeruns.  Way too many.  The ERA us around 5.15 good for 25th out of the 30 teams.  They show stretches where they play good baseball and other stretches where they are just awful.  This team has so many holes and flaws.  Guess we should feel lucky we are in such a terrible division.  We are in first place but not a first place calibre team!

Pitching, pitching, pitching.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

On 7/23/2022 at 9:55 AM, Melissa Berman said:

Super great point about the schedule. It will be interesting to see what happens this weekend too with the White Sox vs Guardians series. Not even quite sure who to pull for in that one 

When Cleveland plays Chicago this year, I submit the Twins fans should hope for a split. I also find myself pulling for the team with the worse record. By the way, another nice article. You have not been writing as much lately. Maybe tied up in a trial?