Twins Look to Win 2025 Border Battle Against the Milwaukee Brewers
On May 16th, the Minnesota Twins traveled to Milwaukee to take on the Brewers while on an 11-game win streak. The Twins shut out the home team in the first two contests, but snapped their season-high 13-game win streak in the finale. Minnesota will now host three games this weekend and look to repeat much of the baseball it played in Wisconsin that weekend. This isn’t the same Twins team, though. Two pitchers that started for the Twins that weekend, Zebby Matthews and Pablo López, are now on the injured list. Even so, the Twins will push on to try to sweep the Brewers in the 2025 season series.
One pitcher who has been looking forward to this rematch is Joe Ryan. In May, Ryan pitched six shutout innings and only surrendered two hits. He also struck out nine Brewers batters. Ryan will start Friday's opener, and the Brewers will counter with Jacob Misiorowski. The 23-year-old Misiorowski has only one start in his career, a five-inning gem against the Cardinals on June 12th. Misiorowski didn’t let up a single hit, struck out five, and only left after five due to leg cramps. The lone blemish at that start was the four walks he had given up. It will be up to the Twins to be patient and let the Brewers starter give them some free bases.
On Saturday, Simeon Woods-Richardson will try to recreate the magic he found against the Astros. He let up one hit and walked one Astro and held Houston scoreless. Despite this, after 53 pitches, manager Rocco Baldelli ended Woods-Richardson’s evening while the Twins had a 1-0 lead. Hopefully, he earned trust with his manager after that start, and if he’s throwing that well again, he’s allowed to go deeper into the ballgame. Milwaukee will send out Jose Quintana on Saturday. Quintana hasn’t gone six innings since April 22nd. The Twins will get an excellent opportunity to see deep into the Brewers' bullpen if they can knock out the youngster Misiorowski early and then handle Quintana.
The Twins' bats will be up to the task if Thursday’s game against the Reds is any indication. Minnesota hit four home runs on the way to putting up 12 runs. Twelve runs ties the season high for runs for the Twins, and is the team’s first time hitting double-digit runs since June 3rd. Byron Buxton was impressive, going 3-6 while hitting two home runs. Carlos Correa also had three hits for the day. A happy sight, if Correa wakes up at the plate, he will be key to Minnesota staying in the playoff hunt, while the team recovers from injuries.
If the Twins' bats stay hot and dig into the bullpen early in the series, it’ll increase the pressure on Quinn Priester to produce for the Brewers on Sunday. Priester’s ERA, 3.46, has been recovering over the last month from a bad start against the Cubs when he allowed seven runs in 4.1 innings on May 2nd. In the eight starts since he’s allowed 11 total runs. Meanwhile, David Festa will appear for the Twins. He finished his last start after 3.2 innings when the Reds bombarded him in the fourth inning. He looked great coming into the inning and hadn’t allowed a hit through three innings and was shutting out a high-flying Reds offense. If Festa can hold that level of play through full starts, he’ll be a fixture in this Minnesota pitching staff for years to come. Make sure to watch the series on Friday at 7:10 P.M. CST.
