Well, the Yankees seem to have their act together

Remember, Minnesota won their division and set the all-time record for most home runs in a season. On paper they were about even with the Yanks. They each won more than 100 games, scored about the same amount of runs, allowed about the same amount. The Yankees hold a slight edge, but the Twins were expected to put up a good fight.

Hasn’t happened so far.

The Twins made the bizarre decision to give the start to Randy Dobnak, who has pitched a total of 28 innings in the majors and started the season as an Uber driver. Oh, yeah, the kid wowed ’em in Ft. Myers and had a terrific start last week against the Tigers, so he might have a great future, but this is the present, and facing the Charlotte Stone Crabs ain’t exactly like taking the mound in the post-season against the New York Yankees. Predictably, the Yankees lit him up like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center. He faced only 13 batters, allowing six hits and two walks, and he left the third inning with the bases loaded and nobody out.

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To give you an example of how much offense the Yankees can put on the field, their #9 hitter, third baseman Gio Urshela, batted .314 with 21 homers.

If he had hit like that at Coors, it’d look like a good season for Rogers Hornsby. He would literally be the best hitter on the Rockies, but on the Yankees he bats last. (Not joking. Urshela had a .902 OPS on the road; Arenado led the Rockies at .866.)

To be fair, Urshela never showed any signs of that offensive talent before this season. He kicked around the minors for a decade, including six seasons in AAA, where he was a steady .275 hitter with about 10-homer power. He played for two other major league teams previously, and never managed to hit as high as .240 in a season. In his two seasons with the Indians, he got into 148 games, equivalent to one season as a full-time player, producing only 7 homers and a .225 batting average.