The Minnesota Twins (5th AL Central, 3.5 GB) can still win the division.
I won’t cite the marathon metaphor, first because I assume you, reader, tire of it, and secondly: the tenor would put the Twins decently near the back of the group heading into mile eight. I’ll wait another month before I daydream about MLB Network stat blocks that include headings like “Since the All-Star Break…” or “Since Naming So-and-so Their Closer, the Twins Are…”
I’ll not consult the tortoise, because in 2026, in baseball: advantage hare.
Instead, I’ll draw your attention to the 84-78 Arizona Diamondbacks of 2023. Headed for a late-season collapse –having lost three tight games in San Francisco — they came to Target Field on August 4 to catch a Minnesota club on the ascendancy. The Twins outscored the Diamondbacks 20-6 in that series, the last two runs coming in the home 9th on Sunday to secure the sweep:
Arizona lost the next three games to the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres, falling to 57-59 on August 11, 7.5 games behind the streaking second-place San Francisco Giants. With 46 games to play, the Dodgers disappeared into the 100-win sunset of Elysian Park.
State of the Central
After 40 games (the benchmark this analysis will use), the Cleveland Guardians lead the AL Central as the only team over .500 (and just barely). The Twins sit in last, but only 3.5 games behind. But the biggest piece of divisional news to emerge from the AL Central — and perhaps the American League altogether — is Tarik Skubal’s elbow surgery.
Skubal is without question the best pitcher in the American League (but have you seen the numbers José Soriano is putting up in Anaheim?). Still, it seems his incredible inning count over the past three years (467.2), and back-to-back Cy Young Award-winning work have taken a toll, sidelining him for some months. The Tigers have promised not to rush Skubal back, and one reason is the mid-table caliber of competition in the AL Central. All four of their closest competitors currently sit, and have hung around, the .500 mark. Over four days last week, all five teams sat below it.
The Kansas City Royals will have to find a way to explode in one facet of the game or another. They are the best example of an “average” club (11th in runs scored, but 6th in hits; 9th in ERA and home runs hit). The Cleveland Guardians need to continue their league-best strikeout rate (377) without serving up home run balls alongside them (51 allowed, 2nd-highest). And while this season probably already feels like a massive step forward for the Chicago White Sox, they’ll have to translate their top-5 slug (.391) into the win column if they prefer trade rumors for Munetaka Murakami not to devour the headlines of their so-far respectable season.
The Tigers are only one game ahead of the Twins. Swept by the Boston Red Sox last week and trailing the Twins in runs scored, RBI, and OBP, only the Tampa Bay Rays and Red Sox have hit fewer home runs than Detroit (36). Still, FanGraphs gives Detroit the best chance to win the division (31.8%), even without Skubal on the start every five days for what could be months.
Riley Greene will kindle some fire sooner or later. I might choose a healthy Zach McKinstry as the most versatile player in all of baseball. And despite his tendencies for violence, Framber Valdez arrived in Detroit as an already-proven winner who will post quality innings and keep the Tigers competitive. I still maintain the Royals will be that team come mid-August, but the Tigers are more than just Skubal’s changeup. They came within a few innings of playing in last year’s ALCS.
But the absence of a league titan — particularly a starting pitcher — with Skubal’s gravity making the space feel far lighter, raises the premium on team consistency. The Tigers, in their current state, will have no easier time reaching the postseason than anybody else.
Or, more simply: the door to the AL Central stands open.
What will it take to win the division?
The shortest and most direct answer to this question: the Twins must name, or acquire, a closer.
Minnesota’s closer situation stings in every close game it plays. There’s some comfort in the fact that Eduardo Tait continues to show promise as the Twins’ catcher of the future. Still, Minnesota’s present bullpen doesn’t have a replacement for Jhoan Duran — few teams do.
Kody Funderburk deserves more than to be sent down. He’s pitched in every situational nightmare that the season has thrown at them, and pitched rather well, especially considering his own family’s adversity off the field. (Cheers and health to his wife, Alicia, and the newly-arrived Murphy Jo Funderburk, my new birthday buddy.) He doesn’t show the stuff of a closer. However, with a consistent role, he would make a pretty solid fireman to counter late-inning lefty power. His high K/BB rate (13/10) would likely improve as well.
Inside the Pen, a data site which tracks bullpen metrics, ranks Minnesota’s bullpen at No. 29. They haven’t given up nearly as many home runs as Houston (33!). Still, once opponents get past the Twins’ power-arm starters, they are less and less likely to strike out. Minnesota’s bullpen has recorded only 113 Ks this year, a league low.
At the bat, things are going pretty well. If someone told you on March 28 that 40 games into the season, the Minnesota Twins would rank third in runs scored and RBI (189, 180), fourth in walks (156), and sixth in home runs (45), you’d have shaken them off like a high splitter. But the Twins continue to boast a top-5 AL offense and a top-10 MLB offense, and that’s with Wallner and Larnach’s continued inconsistency and the seemingly interminable wait for Royce Lewis to return to form still on the churn.
Byron Buxton just turned the difficulty down on all of baseball in the past three weeks, but Brooks Lee‘s recent production is easier to overlook. In the last month, Lee has raised his average to 30 points above his career rate and gotten into a habit of collecting multihit games in high-leverage moments.
But it was his play at shortstop that dotted the exclamation point of Saturday night’s win in Cleveland. Playing with a one-run, 10th inning lead, the Twins looked to close out an exciting, playoff-style game featuring all the tenets of refined baseball: stingy starting pitching, a clutch drive from the superstar’s bat, and one hell of a final out.
“…their sweetest win of the year,” Cory Provus declared. “Their most improbable win of the year.”
Absent context, Saturday’s box score writes a rubric for a team that is difficult to beat. Their ace will keep you in the dugout. Their best hitter will get you, eventually. Even good contact isn’t likely to make it through the infield if it’s on the ground…so pick your pitches precisely.
But the context for the Twins, for those of us following, doesn’t yet offer a reason to believe this type of game will suddenly become the norm. Most dazzling at present are the 27-win Cubs, who now appear to be setting traps for their opponents at Wrigley Field. The Guardians, the division-leader with the fewest wins (21), drift between surges of competitiveness and malaise. They’ve had their own closer crises, and — as with all the AL Central clubs — seem as likely to finish fourth as they are to finish first.
The length of the baseball season remains its greatest oddity, but also the greatest source of hope. Each club has played only a sixth of its games and has the same 122-game run to do its figuring. The season’s length provides daily drama (or maddening frustration), but offers a wide-lens view of the machinery of progress. Minnesota’s struggles might be the story at present. However, so were those of the Arizona Diamondbacks in August 2023. Two months later, they became the fifth team with 85 or fewer wins to win their league’s pennant.
In the history books, on the next line of the same page, you’ll find the 1987 American League Champions: the 85-win Minnesota Twins. Their record after 40 games? Not too different from this year’s club. Right around .500.
3.5 games out of first place.
