Sorry Bro, but it’s highly likely we’ll make the playoffs, but then you’re set up to complain when we get swept in the first round of the playoffs
. From my post yesterday, featuring Math from folks far smarter than moi -
Twins have lost 11 of 17 games and their odds of winning the AL Central are just 17 percent.
And yet, the Twins’ odds of reaching the playoffs — via a wild-card spot or the division title —
have actually increased slightly during that three-week span, rising from 92 percent to 95 percent thanks to the
Kansas City Royals (8-10),
Boston Red Sox (5-12) and
Seattle Mariners(7-9) struggling at the same time.
No team wants to limp into the playoffs, but simply getting to October is a lot more important than how you get to October. Last season, for example, both World Series participants were wild-card teams forced to win a first-round road series to keep playing. Just get there and get hot, as the
Arizona Diamondbacksand title-winning Texas Rangers showed.
That will no doubt require the Twins to play better than they have recently, but it might not take much to hold off the various wild-card contenders trying to catch them. With the Twins holding a 5 1/2-game lead over the next-closest wild-card competitors,
even if they go just 10-12 down the stretch, one of those teams would have to go 16-5 to surpass them.