First Pitch: 3:07 pm CDT

TV: Bally Sports North / ~ / Radio: TIBN

The streakiest team this side of the Mississippi lost their third straight one-run affair last night in deflating fashion, with an improbable three-run comeback homer erased by Jhoan Duran’s third loss of the season.

There’s still time to win this road set, although the momentum-beholden 2024 Twins seem to have difficulty “snapping out of it,” as it were. Since June 1st, the Twins have only flipped a result on consecutive days three times. They’ve gone L1, W1, L5, W2, L1, W6, and now L3. Quite recently 4.5 back and in second place, the team is now back to 7.5 behind the Cleveland Guardians and have once again been leap-frogged by the Kansas City Royals, their closest competitors of the season.

Amidst all this, here on June 22nd with only a few short weeks until the Break (somehow), the Twins remain in playoff position and their nearest competition, the 40-36 Boston Red Sox, have not been a factor in the scoreboard-watching yet this season. The current approach of treading water is working — for now.

Last time out against this same Oakland lineup, Bailey Ober turned in probably his best start in over a month, with 6.1 chucked and eight strikeouts in a 6-2 team win. He’ll get another crack at more or less the same nine, needing to carry what he learned from his success in his last start in order to avoid a fourth straight loss.

For the A’s today goes JP Sears, who coughed up a couple long balls last week at Target Field.

Sears, with all 91 points of his ERA+, is the best starter on the active roster for Oakland. JP and his slider-heavy mix won’t have the stress of the day-half of a doubleheader this time out, unless Ernie Banks returns from beyond the grave and, in an undead coup for power, usurps the role of Commissioner, effective immediately.

GO TWINS GO!