The Minnesota Twins vs. the New York Yankees: 2017 Edition

The American League Wild Card Round of the 2017 MLB playoffs is all but set as the New York Yankees will play host to the Minnesota Twins in a one-game playoffs. Winner takes all and gets the consolation prize of facing off with the Cleveland Indians, the best team in baseball right now, while the loser goes home to pick up the pieces and begin work on their 2018 rosters. You can’t predict baseball and anything can happen in a one-game playoff scenario but that shouldn’t stop us from taking a look at what each team has done this season against one-another, especially the starting pitchers for each respective side Luis Severino and Ervin Santana. While these stats and this analysis won’t tell the story on what will happen next Tuesday in the Bronx it might at least give us an idea if the past is any indicator of the future.

The New York Yankees and the Minnesota Twins have faced off six times this season with the Yankees winning four of those six including sweeping all three at Yankee Stadium recently in impressive fashion. Here are all the particulars on those games:

Team Game-by-Game Schedule

Gm#	Date	Tm		Opp	W/L	R	RA	Win	Loss	Save	Attendance
91	Monday, Jul 17	NYY	@	MIN	L	2	4	Rogers	Smith	Kintzler	27,566
92	Tuesday, Jul 18	NYY	@	MIN	W	6	3	Shreve	Colon	Chapman	33,114
93	Wednesday, Jul 19	NYY	@	MIN	L	1	6	Berrios	Montgomery		33,380
150	Monday, Sep 18	NYY		MIN	W	2	1	Robertson	Santana	Chapman	30,425
151	Tuesday, Sep 19	NYY		MIN	W	5	2	Sabathia	Berrios	Chapman	30,218
152	Wednesday, Sep 20	NYY		MIN	W	11	3	Shreve	Colon		30,099

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

The presumed starting pitchers for the contest will be Luis Severino for the Yankees and Ervin Santana for the Twins. Let’s take a quick moment to check in with what each team has done against the other this season as well as how these pitchers have fared against the other team’s respective offense throughout their careers.

Severino vs. Minnesota in 2017

2017 Pitching Gamelog

Rk	Date	Tm	Opp	Rslt	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
30	Sep 20	NYY	MIN	W,11-3	3.0	5	3	3	1	3	0	3.03

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Severino vs. Minnesota Batters Career

Santana vs. New York in 2017

2017 Pitching Gamelog

Rk	Date	Tm	Opp	Rslt	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA
31	Sep 18	MIN	NYY	L,1-2	5.2	7	2	2	1	3	1	3.34

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table

Santana vs. Yankees Batters Career

The New York Yankees have had the Minnesota Twins number more times than not here in 2017 as well as during the Yankees recent string of success but all of that and $15 bucks will buy you a beer at Yankee Stadium next Tuesday in the playoff game. You can’t predict baseball, you just can’t, but hopefully these numbers will bring a little less doubt as to what to expect next Tuesday here in the Bronx. Or maybe they will just mean that I was crazy for even discussing them when we talk again next Wednesday morning after the AL Wild Card Playoff Round. Stay tuned.

Pitcher vs. team stats via ESPN.com. Head-to-head matchups and team stats via Baseball Reference. Big shout outs to those guys for making posts like this for the little bloggers possible. Thank you from TGP!!