The Twins And Guardians Are Finally Taking Their Fight To The Field

Two years ago, in a fit of despair at the sorry state of the AL Central, I wrote this:

I have sometimes thought of an MLB division as being like an apartment complex of neighbors who can't stand each other. These neighbors are horrible, but they are always there, and you are always running into them in the hallway or in the lobby; passive-aggressive notes about bikes being left in the stairwell are always appearing on the door, and really you would prefer to have nothing to do with any of them, a wish thwarted by circumstances which dictate you must see them and interact with them every single day of your stupid life. 

Oh, my horrible neighbors—I never see them anymore! The following season, MLB introduced a new “balanced schedule,” stuffed with more interleague play at the cost of about 20 in-division games. Four series is still enough time to get acquainted with a division opponent’s middle relievers and pesky utility guys. But where it used to feel like my Tigers had either just played the White Sox or were about to play the White Sox on any given day, the volume of division games is small enough now that they can’t quite be sprinkled evenly across a long season. Pity the Sunday Night Baseball producers: The Yankees and Red Sox didn’t start playing each other until mid-June. When the Twins and Guardians meet today in Minneapolis, beginning their division-defining four-game series with a doubleheader, they will not have seen each other for almost three full months.  

The Twins left Cleveland in May in poor spirits. Not only were they 5.5 games back of the first-place Guardians, they also now had an 0-5 record against them, with no possibility of retribution until August. Once projected to win the division easily, this Twins team was being overshadowed by the Guardians, a machine built with odd parts—the always excellent José Ramírez, a clown car’s worth of fringy middle infielders, the second-worst rotation in baseball by fWAR, the best bullpen in baseball by fWAR—but humming along anyway. For the most part, Cleveland’s lead in the division has been without drama; the Guardians banked enough wins in April to keep them afloat through a rough July, and the Twins have only slightly chipped away in the second half. It'll take a sweep for the Twins to swing the division their way this weekend.

But there is mathematical drama and other kinds of drama, and the Twins-Guardians rivalry has not been without the other kinds. "The Guardians aren't the Yankees of old so they're about to have a downfall eventually," oft-injured Twins third baseman Royce Lewis told the team's on-field reporter in July. I, an impartial observer, have been waiting for this day for weeks. My horrible neighbors, bickering for months, are finally going to beat each other up! Maybe MLB was on to something here. Maybe the balanced schedule gave division rivalries more juice. Without the simple resolution of baseball games, all a rivalry can do is fester. When the schedule-makers prevent you from walking the walk for three months, you can only talk the talk. What’s the saying? Absence makes the hate grow stronger? 

In the meantime, there has been plenty for either side to poke fun at. Royce Lewis makes Byron Buxton look like Cal Ripken. Neither of them is the most injured guy on the team right now. (Twins manager Rocco Baldelli confirmed that Carlos Correa, recovering from a plantar fasciitis flare-up, will miss this series.) The Guardians score all their runs like this:

The silliest of the anti-Cleveland slander goes that their power numbers are the product of a right-field "wind tunnel" created during ballpark renovations in the offseason. This explains, supposedly, why the Guardians have already hit five more home runs than they did all last season. “It’s not like we turn off the wind when (the other team) is hitting,” Guardians starter Tanner Bibee told Cleveland.com, politely entertaining this idea. But what if they do? What if they turn off the wind in the top of every inning? The Guardians have a special talent for turning opposing fans into raving conspiracy theorists. (Tell me Bryce Harper has not been zapped full of Havana syndrome here.)

Another powerful and mysterious sucking force defines this division. It has so far been outside Cleveland’s control. The Twins and Royals both recently wrapped their season series against baseball’s worst team; both finished 12-1 in these games. (If you were curious, the Royals account for Games 5, 6, 7, 15, 16, and 17 of the epochal White Sox losing streak and the Twins account for Games 18, 19, and 20.) Guardians fans may find some comfort in knowing neither the Twins nor Royals have any “White Sox games in hand.” These two challengers to the division title have padded their records as best they can, and still sit three-plus games back of first. But only some comfort. Like any good stat, this one can be wielded to serve either agenda. If there is little pride to take in beating the White Sox, there is even less in losing to them, and the Guardians-White Sox season series is somehow tied right now, 5-5. This division rocks. I was wrong.

Any result this weekend will be a funny one. The scuffling Guardians and their mighty wind tunnel stick it to the Twins again! The Twins at last find the limits of Guardians luck and topple the division leaders! Or best of all, the teams split the series, deny both fanbases their months-awaited relief, and the Royals end up in first place.