Central casting: Twins early schedule packed with division foes
At one point or another, the Minnesota Twins will face the rest of the teams in the American League Central -- Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago and Kansas City -- a total of 19 times each. But Minnesota's 2015 schedule has seen a run of games against division foes rather early in the season.
Thursday's series finale in Detroit is the Twins' 35th game of the year and already the 28th against a team from within the division. That means Minnesota won't see a whole lot of the Tigers, Indians, White Sox or Royals again until later in the year.
"It's inevitable. You're going to play your division teams a lot," Twins pitcher Kyle Gibson said. "That's how the schedule's set up to make sure you find out who the best team out of the five are. It just so happens that our division's really good, which I think should be something we hang our hat on."
For the most part so far, Minnesota has fared rather well against its division opponents. The Twins are 5-2 against the White Sox (including a four-game sweep at Target Field), 4-2 against Cleveland and 3-3 versus Kansas City. The one blemish, of course, is Minnesota's record against the Tigers, which is a disappointing 2-6 heading into Thursday's series finale.
Still, for a Twins team that lost 90-plus games in each of the last four seasons, finding success within the division is one way to indicate whether or not a team is back on track. Through the first month and a half of the season, Minnesota has done just that -- and it's resulted in a 19-15 overall record.
"We've got some good teams. It's a pretty stacked division," Minnesota catcher Kurt Suzuki said. "It's just good to come out and be able to compete and give these guys a run for their money and put together some wins, show these guys we're here. We're not going to lay down just because. We're going to come out fighting and we're going to come out grinding and we're going to put it to them a little bit."
Minnesota faced its AL Central adversaries early last season, too, although not to this extent. Through the same 35-game mark in 2014, the Twins played just 20 of 35 games against their divisional opponents, eight fewer than this year.
Given how good the division has been to this point in 2015, it means Minnesota has been tested early and often. Of the six divisions in Major League Baseball, the American League Central has the highest combined winning percentage (.521) and is the only division with multiple teams with 20 or more wins (the Twins can join that group with a win Thursday in Detroit). By comparison, two divisions -- the AL West and NL East -- have combined losing records of .474 each.
"There are going to be a lot of changes throughout the division," Twins first baseman Joe Mauer said. "I think we responded pretty well lately. We kind of had a rough start to begin with, but I think we're doing pretty well."
Several other AL Central teams made big acquisitions this offseason, leading outsiders to believe that the division would be much-improved. So far, that's held true.
The White Sox signed pitcher Jeff Samardzija and outfielder Melky Cabrera and traded for David Robertson. Cleveland added Brandon Moss. The Tigers dealt for Yoenis Cespedes. And the Royals signed a number of veterans, including pitcher Edinson Volquez and designated hitter Kendrys Morales. The Twins, meanwhile, haven't been able to reap the benefits of their biggest offseason addition: pitcher Ervin Santana, who is currently serving an 80-game suspension for taking an anabolic steroid. The signing of veteran outfielder Torii Hunter has so far proven to be a nice move for Minnesota, as Hunter leads the team in RBI and adds a veteran presence to the clubhouse.
Since the Houston Astros moved to the American League in 2013, there have been an equal number of teams (15) in both the American League and National League. That means on any given day in MLB, there's an interleague game being played. It's also resulted in other scheduling oddities, such as the Twins playing just two out-of-division teams -- Seattle and Oakland -- in their first 11 series of the 2015 schedule.
"I played in that environment for a long time. I never played when it was quite this lopsided, but I enjoy the change of teams throughout the year as opposed to the same teams over and over," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "You can make your comparisons to (playoff) hockey if you want. You play a team seven times in a row. In baseball, a lot of times these guys, you play a team a bunch and it gets competitive, there's no doubt about that."
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