Series Preview: San Diego Comes to Town

[Steven Trefz]

The Twins come home in desperate need to shake off the sour taste of Chicago and Cleveland. The Padres come to town hoping to gain some momentum before heading back to sunny California. Interleague baseball is back at Target Field this week. What can we expect to see?

Image courtesy of © Kiyoshi Mio-USA TODAY Sports

The Twins come home in desperate need to shake off the sour taste of Chicago and Cleveland. The Padres come to town hoping to gain some momentum before heading back to sunny California. Interleague baseball is back at Target Field this week. What can we expect to see?

 

To say that the Twins recent road trip to Chicago and Cleveland was disappointing would be like saying Ron Burgundy accurately assessed the meaning of San Diego during Anchorman. The Twins needed to win both series, and instead limped out of Cleveland with 2-4 trip after getting just one hit in the series finale. One. Hit.

On Tuesday night, the Twins hope to return to some home field advantage with six games against National League opponents. First up, the San Diego Padres. The Padres entered the season in the top tier of World Series favorites, and have started off even worse than the Twins with a 18-17 record and a third place spot in the NL West. The Twins sit 2.5 games clear of Detroit in the AL Central, with a 19-16 record.

Fun Fact: The Padres took the July 2022 home series against the Twins 2-1. Those games featured the amazingly zesty neon city connect jerseys of the Padres. The Twins are still waiting to get their city connect debut, but with the new jerseys launching this season, they obviously aren't made about waiting another year or two to drum up interest.

Weather Factor: Here's the good news! No more chilly excuses! The games against the Padres should hover in the mid-to-high 70's all three days. Hopefully fans will take advantage of a great opponent and beautiful weather.

Pitching Probables
Game 1 - Tuesday, May 9th - 6:40pm CDT - The first game in the series will feature Twins RHP Louie Varland (0-0, 5.91 ERA) versus  RHP Michael Wacha (2-1, 5.46 ERA). Varland looks to finally snag his first win of the season, after pitching to some mixed reviews against the Yankees and White Sox so far this season. He was sunk by the first inning last week in Chicago, and hopefully his first home start of the season will lead to better results.

There have been rumors of Kyle Farmer making an amazing return to the lineup after healing from a broken face the past few weeks. His defense and offense could be the jolt that the Twins sorely need, but at whose expense on the roster? Will the call-up happen now, or will the team wait until the weekend series?

Game 2 – Wednesday, May 10th – 6:40pm CDT - The Twins celebrate yet another Pablo Day on Wednesday, with RHP Pablo Lopez (2-2, 3.77 ERA) looking to erase the memories of his last home start from the fans' minds. The Padres will counter with former Met, RHP Seth Lugo (3-2, 3.21 ERA). 

This appears to be an even matchup on paper (says the guy who predicted the Twins would go 5-1 on last week's road trip). If there is a player to watch on the offensive side, it's Juan Soto, who has 25 at-bats against Lopez with a .360 average and two homeruns against the former Marlin.

Game 3 - Thursday, May 11th - 12:10pm CDT - The Twins have scheduled RHP Bailey Ober (2-0, 0.98 ERA) to close out the series. The Padres elect to start former 2018 Twins free-agent target RHP Yu Darvish (2-2, 3.19 ERA). Darvish isn't in his prime anymore according to the peripheral stats, but his 40 strikeouts in the early weeks of the season point out that he's still better than most. 

The Padres head right back to California to face the Dodgers in LA on Friday. The Twins need to take advantage of this get-away day for a San Diego squad whose attention might be elsewhere ahead of that important divisional series. Or will the one-hit wonders known as the Twins show up for another day game to end a series? All's well that ends well...or so we hope!

Prediction Time!
What’s your prediction for this mid-week home series against a World Series contender? Can the Twins offense fight back after a wake-up call week? Or will the Padres leave their grace at home and leave the Target Field field faithful deep in despair? Let's go, Twins Territory, tell us what you think!

 

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[umterp23]

1 win - 2 losses.  Darvish and Twins are match made in heaven and his strong K numbers.  Game one tonight is their best chance but Varland needs to have a great outing.

[jmlease1]

I think the Twins win this series, but it could easily go the other way. SD has some high-end talent on their roster, but they're definitely a little thin once you go past the top guys. I'd feel better about the pitching matchups if Wacha wasn't the sort of guy that seems to inexplicably do well against us?

I think the pitching keeps us in the game, so will the offense find its way? I'm excited to have Kirilloff back, and amazed that Kyle Farmer is close to being ready. Goodness me, that was a nasty beaning he took, so I'm pretty dang impressed that he's already been back in action in AAA. Tough fella.

[Steven Trefz]

1 minute ago, jmlease1 said:

I think the Twins win this series, but it could easily go the other way. SD has some high-end talent on their roster, but they're definitely a little thin once you go past the top guys. I'd feel better about the pitching matchups if Wacha wasn't the sort of guy that seems to inexplicably do well against us?

I think the pitching keeps us in the game, so will the offense find its way? I'm excited to have Kirilloff back, and amazed that Kyle Farmer is close to being ready. Goodness me, that was a nasty beaning he took, so I'm pretty dang impressed that he's already been back in action in AAA. Tough fella.

I was unlucky enough to see Wacha destroy our lineup live at Target Field back in his Cardinals days. It was the classic "come in at 0-4 with a 6.33 ERA and shut us out" type of outing...which is the trend that has been bothering me the most about our 2023 run so far. Those pitchers are usually beat by taking long at-bats with singles and doubles scoring in bunches. Plate-nibblers!

[jmlease1]

2 minutes ago, Steven Trefz said:

I was unlucky enough to see Wacha destroy our lineup live at Target Field back in his Cardinals days. It was the classic "come in at 0-4 with a 6.33 ERA and shut us out" type of outing...which is the trend that has been bothering me the most about our 2023 run so far. Those pitchers are usually beat by taking long at-bats with singles and doubles scoring in bunches. Plate-nibblers!

Exactly. I went and checked to see if my memory was right on Wacha and while he doesn't have an amazing ERA against us (4.13), his WHIP against us is his 2nd best against any club he's ever faced. It's only 5 games total, so not particularly meaningful...just the sort of thing that makes me twitchy. Hope we go the other way on him and send him packing early this series.

[2wins87]

I'm surprised to see the Padres only middle of the pack offensively so far. Machado and Soto are having somewhat down years but much of the lineup seems to be hitting fine.

I think the Twins offense will need to show up at home.  Hopefully the pitching can keep the Padres offense down somewhat, but I don't think they will be winning any 2-1 or 3-2 games in this series.

Varland has pitched a little better than his ERA would suggest. I'm hoping he will have a better result to show for his efforts at the end of his next outing, but he will have to navigate a few dangerous hitters.

I'm hoping for 2 of 3 as the bats wake up on their return home. But I'm not feeling too confident with how the lineup has looked lately.

[weitz41]

I'm going to look for a 2-1 win in this series and the next...Only because it would fit the...this is a good team...followed immediately by...these guys look terrible...seesaw this season has been so far...

[MGX]

I like the pitching matchups for the Twins in this series & I think offense will start to show some improvement. As noted in the article I hope we show up on Thursday. Prediction - Twins 2 - Padres 1.

[Dave Borton]

1-2. Going to Thurs game to watch Ober beat Darvish.

I listen to some Padres games late at night. I love to see a roster with a commitment of $1.2 billion (after '24 season) scuffling in 3rd place. Same goes for:

• Mets can't get traction either, playing .500 ball.
• And the Yanks in the basement of toughest division in baseball.

[Melissa]

3 hours ago, davidborton said:

1-2. Going to Thurs game to watch Ober beat Darvish.

I listen to some Padres games late at night. I love to see a roster with a commitment of $1.2 billion (after '24 season) scuffling in 3rd place. Same goes for:

• Mets can't get traction either, playing .500 ball.
• And the Yanks in the basement of toughest division in baseball.

I’ll be there on Thursday, too. With almost equal records the Dads “scuffling in third place” says a lot about our division.

[Whitey333]

Wow.  Pretty tough after watching Tuesday fiasco against Padres.  Varland pitched very well.  Offense and defense look meh.  Go Twins