Miguel Sanó brings his career-best hit streak to Detroit
Minnesota Twins first baseman Miguel Sanó is playing great baseball. Right now, Sano has a 10-game hitting streak, which is the best of his MLB career.
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The big man has been able to do it with power, too. During the span of the hitting streak, Sanó’s 11 extra-base hits are tied for the most in baseball. He has also scored a run in each of his last five games.
If Sanó can get it going early against the Tigers on Friday then he’ll contribute to the trend of the Twins’ success in the first few innings. Minnesota has averaged a league-best 2.88 runs in the first four innings and has gotten on the board in the first four innings in 21 of its last 22 games.
Minnesota has been a nightmare to opposing starting pitchers, but against the bullpen? That is a much different story. The Twins have a paltry .301 OBP, .346 SLG and .648 OPS against relief pitchers, which is the second-worst in MLB behind only the Texas Rangers. As a result, Minnesota only has four comeback wins this season.
Still, the Twins are at the top of the AL Central with a 20-12 record and have leaned on mostly solid starting pitching to maintain early leads. Thursday’s starter Randy Dobnak has been a big part of that. In his starts in 2019 and 2020, Dobnak has a 1.81 ERA, making him the first pitcher in franchise history to have a sub-2.00 ERA in his first 11 starts.
Other notes
— Twins outfielder Jake Cave has a history of playing well against the Tigers. Cave has eight multi-hit games against Detroit, which is the most he has against any MLB team. He should get more at-bats than usual with Max Kepler and Byron Buxton dealing with some injuries.
— Minnesota fans are familiar with Jonathan Schoop. The former Twin has been on fire for Detroit in the past 10 days, batting .444 with 16 hits, seven RBI, six runs and three homers.
— The Tigers have a two-game home winning streak, which matches their longest win streak of the season. As far as winning streaks go it’s not very impressive, which makes sense because Detroit has the worst home record (28-69) in MLB since 2019.
Statistics courtesy Sportradar
