2019 MLB Division Series Day 2: Twins vs. Yankees Game 1, Nationals vs. Dodgers Game 2

Twins vs. Yankees

Oh, boy.

Since 2002, the Twins are 35-87 (.282) against the Yankees in the regular season, by far their worst winning percentage against anyone. And that doesn’t include FOUR series losses to the Yankees in division series (2003, 2004, 2009, 2010) in which the Twins went 2-12 and in 2009 were victimized by this horrendous blown call:

With replay review that would have been overturned and maybe the result of that game and series is different.

So why not just skip this series and send the Yankees to the ALCS? Seems pre-ordained, doesn’t it? The Yankees won 103 games this year.

But the Twins won 101 and set a new MLB record for home runs in a season (307), one more than the Yankees. So we should expect a slugfest in this series, right?

Maybe, but the Twins also have some good starting pitching, particularly Jose Berrios. The Yankees pitching is a bit more unsettled — their pitching staff as a whole gave up the seventh-most home runs in MLB while the Twins allowed the seventh-fewest.

And the Twins had the best road record in the major leagues this year, 55-26, although they lost two of three in Yankee Stadium in May.

I’m going to call for the upset here: Twins in five.

Game time for Twins/Yankees: 6 p.m. CT. TV: MLB Network. Announcers: Bob Costas, John Smoltz and Tom Verducci.

Game time for Nationals/Dodgers: 8:30 p.m. CT. TV: TBS. Announcers: Ernie Johnson and Jeff Francoeur with reporter Alex Chappell. Dodgers lead series 1-0.

Pitching matchups:

Jose Berrios (Twins) vs. James Paxton (Yankees)

Stephen Strasburg (Nationals) vs. Clayton Kershaw (Dodgers)

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday for Twins/Yankees

MLB.com Gameday for Nationals/Dodgers

Baseball-reference.com game preview for Twins/Yankees

Baseball-reference.com game preview for Nationals/Dodgers

Please visit our SB Nation Twins site Twinkie Town, Yankees site Pinstripe Alley, Nationals site Federal Baseball and Dodgers site True Blue LA. If you do go there to interact with Twins, Yankees, Nationals or Dodgers fans, please be respectful, abide by their individual site rules and serve as a good representation of Cub fans in general and BCB in particular.

This is the only thread for today’s night games. Enjoy, and discuss amongst yourselves.