That's the Ticket: The King and Summer

Series Preview

Seattle isn't terrible. They enter this series a .500 team, which puts them in the middle of the AL West and the midst of a very large pack of teams that are somewhat viable Wild Card teams (which includes the Twins, by the way.) They’re also on pace for the 81.5 games that Vegas expected them to win this year. That’s a lot better than they did last year when they won 71 games.

It’s easy to say the difference it the offseason signing of Robinson Cano. Cano, however, has been disappointing. He is still hitting for average (.301) and getting on base (.356), but his power has disappeared. The regular season is one-fourth complete and Cano has one home run. Joe Mauer has more home runs than Cano. Kurt Suzuki is out-slugging him.

You'll likely get to see Cano no matter which game you go to. He's played in every game this year for Seattle and has played second base in all but two of them.

Pitching Matchups

However, you'll only get to "King" Felix Hernandez on Sunday, which is the first reason Sunday’s game is the hot ticket this weekend. Hernandez has not been disappointing. He's been Hernandez: three-ish ERA, among the league leaders in strikeouts and on pace for 230 or so innings. That’s been his profile now for 10 years - and he's just 28 years old.

He'll be facing Twins pitcher Ricky Nolasco, who is pitching better than his 5.51 ERA suggests, but that's damning with faint praise. Nolasco has a 3.86 ERA since May rolled around, and his hit rate (11.4 H/9) suggests he's been a little unlucky. Seattle isn’t a bad bet to assist his turnaround; the Mariners are twelfth in the AL in runs scored.

But if you can’t see Felix, at least you won’t have to watch Kevin Correia take the hill. Mercifully, Twins fans won’t see him starting at Target Field until the next homestand – if he’s still in the rotation. On Friday, Kyle Gibson (who has also been struggling lately) faces a rejuvenated Chris Young. On Saturday night, bring some extra cash for an extra round of beers, because Samuel Deduno faces Roenis Elias, a left-hander from Cuba that looks like he’s every bit as wild as Deduno.

Weather

But the best reason that Sunday is the hot ticket is because it’s going to be relatively hot, especially in the seats down the Target Field third base line. The forecast is for sunny and 70 degrees, which would be only the fourth time this year it’s reached 70 degrees. Hopefully, this is the game that turns around the weather for the better this year. Don’t you want to be a part of that?