TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays have been playing good baseball lately, but the Minnesota Twins, who hit town for a three-game series starting Monday night at Steinbrenner Field, have been even better. They’ve been the hottest team in baseball the past three weeks.
The Twins, managed by former Rays standout Rocco Baldelli, are 16-3 since May 3. That included a 13-game winning streak — the longest in the majors this year — and had two sweeps of the Baltimore Orioles, a sweep over the San Francisco Giants and two wins at the start and end of the streak over the Boston Red Sox and Milwaukee Brewers.
The Twins are 29-23 now and one of four teams over .500 in the American League Central. It’s the only division in baseball with four teams over that level. The Rays are 26-26.
This series was one of two that were switched by MLB once it was determined the Rays would play this season outdoors at Steinbrenner Field, This was supposed to be in Minneapolis, but instead they Rays will travel north for three games on July 4-6.
That Minnesota streak dwarfs the Rays’ current five-game winning streak by comparison. Here’s a quick look at the series, with dates, game times and starting pitching.
Here are three things to know about the Twins up to Memorial Day and the unofficial start of summer.
The Twins weren’t playing well early in the season, starting just 7-15. But then when they started seeing some American League East teams on their schedule, they suddenly got hot. Like, very hot.
They beat the Boston Red Sox twice on May 3-4 and got the luxury of playing the suddenly gawd-awful Baltimore Orioles six times in a nine-day period. They won all six games, and by a combined score of 37-14. It was a complete beatdown. The Twins basically got Orioles manager Brandon Hyde fired. He was let go two days afer the second sweep.
The AL East is usually the best division in the American League, but not this year. The Twins are 8-1 vs. the AL East, and the Rays are 0-3 vs. AL Central teams, getting swept at home by Kansas City two weeks ago.
Here’s an amazing stat: The AL Central is 35-20 against the AL East this year.
in the summer of 2021, the Rays were hoping to win a second straight American League pennant, and really needed another power bat. So they traded with Minnesota for veteran slugger Nelson Cruz, who hit 464 home runs in his 18-year career.
Cruz played 57 games for the Rays that year, hitting 13 home runs with 36 RBIs and a modest .226 batting average. The Rays lost to Boston in the first round of the playoffs, with Cruz hitting just .176. He was a free agent, and went to Washington in 2022 and San Diego in 2023 before retiring.
The piece of the deal heading to Minnesota was pitcher Joe Ryan, who was 25 at the time and pitching at Triple-A Durham. The Rays, a pitching-heavy organization, felt like he was expendable. But it’s been a little tough to watch him be so good with the Twins.
Ryan, who will turn 29 on June 5, will pitch against the Rays on Tuesday night. He is 4-2 with a nifty 2.68 ERA and his WHIP — that’s walks and hits per nine innings — is only 0.81. That’s second-best in baseball behind only Nathan Eovaldi (0.79) of the Texas Rangers.
Ryan is 37-29 all-time in the majors since 2021, with a 3.79 ERA and a 1.04 WHIP. He’s been that good, and has never had a losing season. The Rays still have plenty of good pitching themselves, but they’ll certainly have their hands full on Tuesday.
Rocco Baldelli is one of the all-time favorite Rays players, and it’s always a special treat every time he comes back home.
The former Rays coach has been in charge in Minnesota since 2019, and he is in his seventh season with the Twins. He is 486-436 with them and has won three AL Central titles. He won a wild-card series 2-0 over Toronto in 2023 but is 1-8 otherwise in an AL division series loss to the New York Yankees in 2019, and a 2-0 wild-card loss to Houston in 2020. They lost again to Houston in the 2023 ALDS, falling 3-1
The Twins look like a playoff team this year, too. They have a great bullpen, and their starters have been mostly good, too, with Pablo Lopes and Ryan leading the way. Bailey Ober and Chris Paddack have been solid as well.
