chi-town twins fan

Fans of Nippon Professional Baseball have been able to watch several former Twins players in the 2026 season. On August 12, Kenta Maeda recorded his third victory of the season for the Rakuten Eagles—and his 100th career win in NPB to go alongside his 68 MLB career wins, including 18 from his three seasons with the Twins. The 38-year-old began his debut season with the Pacific League cellar-dwelling Eagles battling leg cramps and didn’t get his first win of the season until June 25. The 100th win came at home at Rakuten Mobile Stadium in Sendai. Maeda went 7 innings in the 7-2 victory over Orix, giving up 2 runs on 7 hits and striking out 4. Maeda is now 3-3 on the season with a 2.87 ERA. There may be some life left in that arm, after all. By coincidence, the key hit in that game came from another former Twin. Carson McCusker, also in his first season with Rakuten, knocked out a grand slam in the sixth inning to overcome a 0-2 deficit. It was his 16th homer on the year. In a joint ‘hero interview’ after the game, McCusker joked that he came to the plate wanting to give the “old man” a shot at the career milestone. Maeda was all smiles in his half of the interview, showing off cartoons he’d drawn on a t-shirt of his own performance and of McCusker’s blast. A number of other names familiar to Twins’ fans can be seen on NPB playing fields this season. Miguel Sano currently has 13 home runs and a .743 OPS in 59 games in his first season with the Chunichi Dragons, currently in fifth place in the Central League. Trey Cabbage is in his second season with the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, currently locked in a tight battle with the Hanshin Tigers for first place in the Central League. And Tsuyoshi Nishioka joined the Chiba Lotte Marines this season as hitting and first-base coach. Finally, it’s perhaps worth noting that the LG Twins in the Korean Baseball Organization are currently in third place, 6.5 games out of first place. Since the top five teams (out of ten) qualify for the KBO postseason, it seems likely that they will earn a playoff berth. Let’s hope they’re not the only Twins’ team to make the 2026 postseason.

Thanks for this intelligent analysis, John. One thing I've been thinking about that I haven't seen anyone discuss yet is what motivates the Pohlads' thinking on cutting payroll. Of course, it's the money, but I think it's more than that. The question is, which community do they value? It's clearly not the community of Twins' fans, but rather that of their fellow owners: they'd rather show their loyalty to that group by slicing payroll than seek the approval of the team's fans. It's a continuation of what Carl did back in the bad old days of contraction: the Pohlads seem quite willing to sacrifice the fan base to earn status among the small community of MLB owners (and it's not even all of the owners: the playoffs this year are heavily loaded with teams whose owners were willing to buck the trend and spend extra money).

Nice piece of writing, Nick. Thanks!

Terrific piece! I gotta say, that given the one-two punch combination here (Berrios, then Buxton), I have to suspect that the logjam here lies on the side of ownership/front office. As a lifelong Twins' fan, this really feels like a make-or-break moment for me.

I don't know how you missed this one: Garlick stinks up the joint.

Tanner English also made a heckuva diving catch tonight in center field for the Kernels.