Texas Rangers @ Minnesota Twins Series Preview

The Rangers have a quick four game road trip to Minnesota to start this week. This will be their third four game series this season and so far they are 2-0 in those series.

Texas will have three starters who have never faced the Twins before this series in their career.

The starters for tonight’s game will be Dane Dunning and Kenta Maeda. Maeda has not been consistent across his starts. In five games, he’s pitched 23.1 innings and given up 19 runs (17 earned) on 36 hits and in each of his last two starts, he’s given up three home runs and struck out just four combined. He has a 6.56 ERA and 1.76 WHIP on the season. This will be his second start, third appearance, against Texas in his career. His two games previously came in 2018 where he pitched six total innings, and gave up three runs on six hits and five walks and struck out two.

Dunning has looked more human in his last two starts, he’s given up nine runs on fourteen hits , three walks, and striking out eight in 7.2 innings. His last start against the Angels, however, did show improvement after a visit by the pitching coach.

Tuesday’s starters will be Kyle Gibson and J.A Happ. Happ has been ace material for Minnesota in his last two starts going 7.1 and seven innings, giving up just two runs on five hits, three walks, and six strikeouts. Currently, he has a 1.96 ERA and 0.83 WHIP. He’s made seven career starts against the Rangers and has a 3.19 ERA and 1.02 WHIP against them in 42.1 innings.

As Gibson played for Minnesota for seven years before playing with the Rangers, this will be his first time pitching against his former team. He has a career 4.72 ERA in 95 games and 534.1 innings pitched at Target Field.

On Wednesday, Hyeon-Jong Yang will make his first MLB start in place of Kohei Arihara who has a callus on a finger of his pitching hand and separately got an injection for soreness on the same finger. Yang has made two bullpen appearances this season, both of which he went 4.1 innings. In his most recent outing against Boston, he gave up one hit, one walk and struck out four.

Minnesota doesn’t have a starter listed for Wednesday’s or Thursday’s game as of 12:40 p.m. CDT Monday.

Jordan Lyles will pitch on Thursday and he’s looked... well more like Jordan Lyles in his recent starts. In his last start he gave up seven runs on 2.2 innings on 10 hits and three walks. He’s only made one other start against Minnesota in his career, and that was in 2013. He went 6.1 innings and gave up three runs on four hits, one walk, and struck out four.

The first three games will have a slightly eariler start time at 6:40 p.m. CDT and Thursday’s getaway game will be at 12:40 p.m. CDT.