Kenta Gone

 The Twins celebrated the end of August by losing six straight and giving the division to the Indians and White Sox. How refreshing.

I don't know why the AL Central is always really intriguing in how close everyone is, but once again we've got three teams scratching and clawing at each other for positions, and it may come down to all three getting into the postseason. The Indians and White Sox are hot right now, and have taken the Twins' suggestion of power-hitting to get ahead. Meanwhile, the Twins have lost Max Kepler and Mitch Garver. Only Nelson Cruz has over 10 home runs, the White Sox have 3 guys over 10 [Abreu, Robert and Jimenez]. Jose Berrios is slowly regaining his ERA numbers, and now Michael Pineda's been added to the mix.

This is not the 2019 team. They're good, and they're contending, but they're not the home run monolith that they once were. As good as Josh Donaldson is, he's not the force that can bring them back there.

They've honestly become a better pitching team, as Randy Dobnak and Rich Hill are having improbably great years, and Kenta Maeda's having his best season in years, with 4 wins, 48 strikeouts, and a 2.53 ERA. It's numbers that make you think the Dodgers figured he was cooked after a few okay seasons; meanwhile Brusdar Graterol's not exactly unhittable over there. Maeda and Dobnak are ace material, and running this team right now while the lineup catches up [Cruz notwithstanding]. 

As...okay as the core of this team is, I still hope they do well in the postseason, and I hope they pitch they way past some unlikely opponents. Plus, they just brought up Willians Astudillo. Willians Astudillo needs postseason playing time. We need more La Tortuga. 

Coming Tonight: A guy that took like 3 years to make a consistent mark on the game, and thankfully it's in a season where his Cubs are surging as well.