The 2020 Major League Baseball Qualifiers kicked off Tuesday with the Houston Astros against the Minnesota Twins in the first game of the Major League Soccer Series Wild Card. The twins beat AL Central a good plus week of play and finished 36-24 to claim their second consecutive AL Central title. As the number three in AL, the twins will now play the best of three at Target Field against Astros, who went disappointingly 29-31 in the regular season. Given the shape and runner-up in AL West, Astros has six seeds.
Here’s a look at when Twins and Astros will be operating in the coming days:
|
Game 1 |
Tuesday, 29 September |
2 PM ET |
RHP Kenta Maeda vs. RHP Zack Greinke |
ABC |
Min – 160; +150 contract; O / U: 7.5 |
|
Game 2 |
Wednesday 30 September |
1 p.m. ET |
RHP Jose Berrios vs. TBA |
ESPN 2 |
to be announced later on |
|
3 * game |
Thursday, October 1 |
To be announced |
RHP Michael Pineda vs TBA |
ESPN |
to be announced later on |
* If necessary
Here are three things to know about this series.
Star stars will be out of a terrible month
Houston closed for August in very good condition. They were 19-14 and only 2 1/2 games behind the champions in the West. September, however, wasn’t kind to Astros. A streak of six-game losing streak early in the month left them late and never recovered. After losing three straight matches to humble Rangers to finish the season, Astros’ record in the final month of the regular season was 10-17.
The home area feels like a huge deal
Look at this split for each team. Astros went 20-8 at home and 9-23 on the road. The twins went 24-7 at home and 12-17 on the road. That’s as extreme as you’ll see anywhere in baseball from both teams. Given that the series is in Minnesota, just looking at these numbers indicates that the twins must have had a huge advantage. It’s a short series and it’s vulnerable to shocks, but it still seems like a pretty daunting task for Astros.
Loss of strength?
In this day and age, we are so accustomed to seeing the long ball go a long way in deciding who will win in play-offs. Target Field is one of the most energy-suppressing ball fields of the big companies. The twins were a hit on their home turf, albeit not to the extreme that they did last season, but with just 69 people, the Astros team ranked close to the bottom third of the league.
However, when looking at individuals on both sides, it would be foolish to think that the series would be devoid of power. Maybe it will only end up with the long games at the right time, but these two teams don’t even play two games without at least two big bangs. Watch out for the Twins Byron Buxton midfielder, who has beaten 13 homers in 130 at-bats this season.
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