The New York Yankees hold the No. 1 spot in the American League wild-card standings, but they would prefer to sit atop their division and let other teams battle it out for the wild card.
New York (83-66) will get a chance to climb closer to first place in the AL East when they open a three-game series against the Minnesota Twins (65-84) on Monday night in Minneapolis.
The Yankees, who have won nine of the last 10 meetings against the Twins, enter the series four games behind the Toronto Blue Jays (87-62) for first place.
New York holds a 1 1/2-game edge over the Boston Red Sox and a 2 1/2-game lead over the Houston Astros, who also occupy wild-card spots. The Texas Rangers and Cleveland Guardians remain in the hunt as they sit two games back and 2 1/2 games back, respectively, of the final wild-card spot.
The Yankees arrive in Minnesota with a bad taste in their mouth after losing 6-4 to the Red Sox on Sunday night. The loss snapped a three-game winning streak.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone did not want to offer a big-picture view of his team’s recent matchups against playoff contenders.
“We’ll get into Minnesota here late and we’ve got another playoff game (Monday),” Boone said. “That’s how I look at it.”
Yankees slugger Aaron Judge will look to stay hot. He has five home runs in his past six games, including his 48th homer of the season Sunday.
“He looks really good,” Boone said. “More good ABs (on Sunday). He smokes a ball off the wall there, the last one. That’s as clean as you can hit a ball the other way. …
“He’s just getting on time, getting into that good position where he’s making his move how he wants to (at the plate). I feel like that’s where he’s kind of been searching for these last few weeks, and it looks really good to me.”
Twins right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson (6-4, 4.58 ERA) will try to stifle Judge and his teammates. Woods Richardson is going for back-to-back wins after holding the Los Angeles Angels to three runs in five innings on Sept. 8.
This will be Woods Richardson’s first career start against the Yankees.
New York will counter with left-hander Carlos Rodon (16-8, 3.11), who has registered three straight quality starts. Rodon took the loss in his last outing despite limiting the Detroit Tigers to two runs on five hits in six innings.
In 15 games (14 starts) against the Twins, Rodon is 9-3 with a 4.00 ERA in 83 1/3 innings.
The Twins are coming off a series loss against the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks, who took two of three over the weekend.
“I feel like we were in every game and competed,” Twins outfielder Matt Wallner said. “(We’re) just taking that and finishing strong and just building for next year — everyone as a group, individually. It can never hurt.”
–Field Level Medi
