Cleveland Indians: Previewing the series against the Minnesota Twins

The road trip continues for the Cleveland Indians as they continue their run through their AL Central competition, facing the Twins this week.

The Cleveland Indians have to feel pretty great about playing in the AL Central. The Twins have been trending downward since the last time these teams met and now they’ve traded away arguably one of their best players in Eduardo Escobar. It’s likely that more Twins players will be dealt before all is said and done.

As for the Indians they sit a comfortable nine games ahead of the Twins in the division and could extend that lead to 12 with a sweep this weekend. But that may be asking a lot. Believe it or not the Twinkies have a 6-3 record against the Tribe this year and are the only team in the division with a winning record over them.

So with that thought process in mind you have to think the Indians are playing with a bit of pride on the line as they don’t want to stay below .500 against a team they’re leading by almost 10 games in the division. Here is how they’ll stack up this time.

Projected lineups

Cleveland Indians (57-47) vs. Minnesota Twins (48-56)

Cleveland Indians: SS Francisco Lindor, LF Michael Brantley, 3B Jose Ramirez, DH Edwin Encarnacion, 1B Yonder Alonso, 2B Jason Kipnis, RF Melky Cabrera, C Yan Gomes, CF Greg Allen

Minnesota Twins: DH Joe Mauer, LF Eddie Rosario, SS Jorge Polanco, 2B Brian Dozier, 1B Logan Morrison, 3B Miguel Sano, RF Robbie Grossman, C Mitch Garver, CF Jake Cave

The injury to Tyler Naquin has brought Greg Allen back up from Triple-A Columbus. Make no mistake though. The Indians need an outfielder. There is a market for them and the Indians will likely make that move by tomorrow unless they’d prefer to wait for the waiver period.

Oh look, Miguel Sano is back up after spending some time in *squints eyes* CLASS-A ADVANCED, ALL THE WAY IN FLORIDA. HAHAHA. Sorry. As for the rest of the lineup, names like Joe Mauer and Brian Dozier may be on another teams lineup card before this series is over. Despite being in second place, the Twins are obvious sellers.