Game 135: Padres at Twins

First Pitch: 6:10 pm CDT
TV: Twins.TV
Radio: TIBN / WCCO 830 / The Wolf 102.9 FM / Audacy

KNOW THINE ENEMY: Gaslamp Ball

The Twins, in a bizarre scheduling quirk, took home a win against a good team on Friday night. In beating the San Diego Padres 7-4 in the series opener, they have the hilarious opportunity to win a series this Saturday against the one team with a fighting chance to unseat the Los Angeles Dodgers as champions of the National League West.

To do so, they’ll be firing Taj Bradley as the second-game salvo. Bradley, like fellow prospect Mike Abel before him, had a dismal Twins debut, allowing seven earned runs in a 8-0 team loss to the Chicago White Sox. Maybe it’s just a White Sox thing, because Bradley’s most recent start before that — his last with the Tampa Bay Rays — was another South Side clunker that saw the young starter allow four earned runs and walk three Sox in less than two innings of work.

So, he’ll instead get a chance to show what he’s got against the San Diego Padres, who have cemented themselves as one of the most exciting teams of the decade after failing to post a winning record over a 162-game season between 2011-2021. The vision has been realized for a team like the Padres, who have crafted such an electric fan experience at Petco Park that it’s hard to remember that they’ve only really been the Padres for about four seasons.

For the Friars, it’s Nick Pivetta who the Twins will be seeing during the best season of his career. Already at a career-high 4.7 bWAR, Pivetta is running a 2.82 ERA with a league-low 6.0 H/9 and plenty of punchouts. Pivetta ran a solidly-average 102 ERA+ across 107 starts with the Boston Red Sox from 2020-2024; that mark has skyrocketed to 152 in his first season of a four-year deal with the Dads.

There are only 28 games left in the regular season, which means I only have a few opportunities left to actually cover a win. Minnesota’s last Saturday victory was on July 12th — that’s pre-All-Star Break, folks — but I didn’t even cover that game. Ben did. To reach my actual last victory, you’d have to roll that one back to July 5th, a walk-off winner against the Tampa Bay Rays that brought the team’s record to 43-46. Let’s just say, things have taken a bit of a turn since then.

GO TWINS GO!