Minnesota at Toronto, May 10-12

After a sluggish start (6-9), the Twinkies banged out a 12 game winning streak, which will generally put you back in the thick of things. They're mostly riding a few very hot hitters: Max Kepler, Ryan Jeffers, Willi Castro - who are all performing way above and beyond their established levels.

Austin Martin has finally made it to the show - he's exactly one week younger than Vladimir Guerrero, who's been here a while. It takes some guys longer, I guess. Martin has been playing in the outfield (LF and CF) and is almost holding his own at the plate. The other half of the deal, Simeon Woods-Richardson, began the season with AAA St. Paul (talk about having your AAA affiliate conveniently close). He was called up to start the second game of a double-header on 13 April, and turned in a very strong game against Detroit to notch his first major league W. So back to St. Paul he went, for a couple of weeks before returning on 25 April. He's started three games since returning and the last one, against Seattle, was especially outstanding - six innings of one-hit shutout, with 8 Ks. We'll see him tomorrow. It will be Joe Ryan tonight, who I always regard as timeless and eternal proof that even the Tampa Bay Rays can made Terrible Mistakes.

Matchups

Fri 10 May - Ryan (1-2, 3.54)  vs Kikuchi (2-2, 2.72)

Sat 11 May - Woods-Richardson (1-0, 1.74() vs  Gausman (2-3, 3.78)

Sun 12 May - Ober (2-1, 4.42) vs  Manoah (0-0, 13.50)