Minnesota Twins Weekly Betting Update-August 23

The Minnesota Twins have hung around in the American League playoff race but will need more consistency down the stretch to capitalize. 

SportsGrid will follow the AL Central closely over the final month of the MLB season and offer a weekly update from the FanDuel Sportsbook, which has plenty of betting implications for how things finish out in the three-headed AL Central race. Not only will we be looking toward their upcoming series but also tracking their divisional, playoff, and World Series odds along the way. 

The Twins will open their week with a three-game series against the Houston Astros while concluding things against the San Francisco Giants in a three-game set. 

Heading into action on Tuesday, the Twins sit three games behind the Seattle Mariners for the third wild card position in the American League. Expectations weren’t exactly high for the Twins entering this season, but they’ve hung around long enough now that they deserve respect in this playoff race. Still, the games have been more meaningful of late, and the Twins haven’t found that next gear, leading them to three straight losses and a 5-5 record over their past ten games. All is certainly not lost for this team, but they need to avoid letting these losses pile up, or else they’ll quickly find themselves without a chair in this tightly contested playoff race in the AL. 

The AL Central is currently crowded at the top, and you can make a realistic case that any of the three teams in the race can come out on top. With that, the Twins hold the worst odds of the three to win the division at +270, which should hardly surprise bettors. With the Chicago White Sox entering the year with high expectations and the Cleveland Guardians currently leading the division, this is why the Twins sit in this position, despite currently being in the second spot. Having the worst odds of the three teams fighting for the crown gives the Twins some value here, but it’s hard to have a ton of faith in what this team is offering, especially after their recent stretch of poor play. 

The thing about the American League right now is that every team has shown cracks in its armor. That says that any team that qualifies for the postseason deserves consideration to represent the AL in the World Series. While that may be the case, it hardly means they’d be favored against the National League winner. With so much uncertainty surrounding the Twins, it’s hard to buy into their World Series odds at +7000. That number feels about right on par with how they’ve performed this year, but it’s difficult to see this rotation stacking up with the big boys in the AL, meaning avoiding this number is probably the right call for the time being.