My mistake, I should have said Blackburn would replace Baker in the KC series.

Fine and dandy.

A little perspective, though:

Excluding his April starts, he’s faced KC, Oakland and Seattle twice each, and Detroit and Cleveland once each.

That’s two last place teams, a team that’s gone 16-36 in the past two months, and two division rivals that are battling for fourth place.

I like what I’m seeing. But I’m not convinced yet.

I meant to say, in line to start the tiebreaker, not “to start the post-season”.

Additionally, I foolishly am assuming that a tiebreaker is a possibility because I haven’t investigated that situation. Is it still a possibility?

Being 6 out in the WC means the Twins are done with that race. No way Boston starts lagging as they want the Division for home field advantage

The decision re Baker’s possible start today and onward is very important. He was on track to pitch the last game of the season. So here’s the opportunity to move that back.

There could be a tie in the Central, and a 1-game playoff. Right now, the starting pitcher for that would have to be Perkins, arguably the worst Twins starter.

If Baker starts today, I suggest using the 6th starter (Boof) on the 17th, which was to be a Baker start (but now would only get him 3 days’ rest). Baker would start the 18th. He would get his normal 4 days’ rest.

The normally scheduled pitchers would still pitch the 14th, 15th, and 16th.

The only negatives of my plan (in addition to the one-day use of Boof) are — Everyone besides Baker would then get at least 5 days’ rest starting the 19th, with additionally Liriano getting 6 days’ rest on the 23rd (and Perkins getting 5 days’ rest on the 24th). Baker would have only 2 starts remaining, instead of 3, after today (since he would be in line to start the post-season).

Liriano would face Chicago instead of, essentially, Blackburn.

Neutrally, Baker would replace Liriano, essentially, in the Rays series. And Blacburn would replace Liriano, essentially, in the KC series. (Blackburn can pitch well again vs KC.)

(Here’s the chart):

ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED/NOW SCHEDULED

14 - BL/BL
15 - S/S
16 - L/L
17 - Boof/P
18 - P/B
19 - BL/P
20 - S/BL
21 - L/S
22 - Off
23 - B/L
24 - P/B
25 - B/P
26 - S/BL
27 - L/S
28 - B/L
Tiebreaker - P/B

HOWARD, get this info to the Twins please. I analyzed and posted Thursday how they could have set up the Rays and Chisox series and tiebreaker better by using offdays and rearranging the rotation but didn’t.

Now here’s a fortuitous opportunity to do so again.

They MUST start Baker today, and then evaluate the above plan and decide by Tuesday on it.

So its at least 57 years old.

I am sure the teams involved would rather play one game-winner take all, than be eliminated because of some regular season clunker that no one remembers any more.