Both lineups have also taken hits. Byron Buxton and Austin Martin are on Minnesota's injured list, and Detroit is nursing Kerry Carpenter and Matt Vierling back from lingering foot and adductor issues while Hao-Yu Lee is day-to-day with a shin contusion. None of that shows up in a box score from July, but it's exactly what's on the field now.
Minnesota took 2 of 3 from Detroit in their last meeting, part of a stretch where the Twins have gone 3-2 over their last five games after a couple of lopsided wins. Detroit has dropped 2 of the last 3 meetings with this same Twins team and enters having lost 2 straight of its own. Both clubs still have Monday's series opener to play before this game, so neither streak is locked in stone yet.
The bigger story here is Detroit's collapse — a team that once had the best record in baseball on July 8 and built a 15.5-game lead in the AL Central has fallen out of the race entirely, and the injury list above is a big part of why. Minnesota's own season has been a step short of the wild card chase it hoped to be in. What's left for both clubs now is a lot of evaluation time: who on the current roster looks like part of next year's plan, and who's auditioning for a bigger role once the front offices start making decisions this winter.