Let’s Sweep the Twins!

While the wild card rival Cardinals and Giants are busy beating up on each other this weekend, the Mets have a golden opportunity to gain ground with a three-game home series against the Major League’s worst team of 2016 – the Minnesota Twins. The two inter-league teams haven’t played since 2013 and back then the Mets swept the Twins in Minnesota.

No offense intended against the team or the city – and hey, they’ve had two World Series wins since we last won – but they really stink this year. Entering this series the Twins’ record stands at 55-92, good for last place in the AL Central by a long shot. In fact, as of this writing, they are 30 games out of first place and 25 games out of the second wild card. Their season is mathematically over so they are playing out the string, as the old saying goes.

So, what makes them so terrible? For starters, their pitching is just putrid. The only starting pitcher they have with an ERA under five is Ervin Santana and he’s not exactly in the running for the Cy Young Award. Their bullpen isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly not one of the better ones we’ve faced. The Mets should be able to score plenty of runs against this staff.

The Twins lineup isn’t much better. While Joe Mauer is still paid like a superstar catcher, he now plays more like a slightly better than average first baseman, and that’s mainly due to his ability to draw walks. Left fielder Robbie Grossman is also adept at getting on base, but he has no speed and little power. The much hyped five-tool prospect and often injured centerfielder Byron Buxton is hitting .219. Third baseman Miguel Sano has hit 23 home runs but is batting .236 and among the league leaders in strikeouts. He also injured his back and will miss this series. The only real offensive threat on this team is Brian Dozier (41 home runs, 98 RBI). The second baseman is having an MVP year and has been on a second half tear.  Dozier is now the first Twin to hit 40 home runs in a season since Harmon Killebrew. As long as the Mets are smart about walking him when they need to, handling this lineup shouldn’t be a problem.

Two out of three would be okay, but a sweep would really put us in a nice position. If the Cardinals and Giants split their four-game set, the Mets would then gain ground on both and catapult into the first wild card, positioning them for a home game for the sudden death match. Anything less than two out of three would be a disaster. These are the kind of games you have to take advantage of, especially in a pennant chase.

Noah Syndergaard won’t make an appearance in this series, but the pitching matchups still work in our favor with Bartolo Colon (13-7, 3.27 ERA) vs. Jose Berrios (2-6, 9.27 ERA) on Friday, Seth Lugo (4-2, 2.40 ERA) vs. Ervin Santana (7-10, 3.53 ERA) on Saturday, and a combination of Jacob deGrom (7-8 , 3.04 ERA) and Steven Matz (9-8, 3.40 ERA) vs. Kyle Gibson (6-9, 5.08 ERA) on Sunday. The latter should give us a good read on whether these two ailing arms will be able to rejoin us for the stretch run. If it turns out they can, and the Mets can take care of business at Citi Field with a weekend sweep of the Twins, there will be a lot of smiling Mets fans come Monday morning.