Series Preview: San Diego Comes to Town

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!