Baseball’s most wide-open division, the AL Central, is now down to just two. The Chicago White Sox have been in the division lead for most of the summer, and at varying points, the Minnesota Twins, Detroit Tigers, and Cleveland Guardians have made efforts at chasing them down.
However, both the Twins and the Tigers underwent losing streaks in August that effectively ended their chances, and even after taking the first two in a three-game home series against Detroit, Minnesota still trails Chicago by 6.5 games.
The Twins will go for a sweep tonight at 7:40 p.m. ET. Drew Anderson will start for the Tigers, and Minnesota will turn to Dean Kremer.
Let’s break down this divisional battle with some odds and lines at DraftKings Sportsbook.
Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins Best Bets
- Under 8.5 (+100): As long as Anderson doesn’t completely implode, Detroit’s offense is awful enough that it’s hard to imagine this game going over. The gap between the 29th-place Miami Marlins and the Tigers in OPS over the last 15 days is larger than that between the Marlins and the eighth-place Athletics.
- Dean Kremer Head-to-Head Strikeouts Moneyline (-129): The Twins have played pretty effective small ball over the last month with their only major power threat, Byron Buxton, sidelined; in August, Minnesota ranked 10th in batting average while striking out the fourth-fewest times.
Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins prediction, preview
After falling 16 games below .500 at the end of May, Detroit started to play like a playoff team in the early summer, coming within one game of .500 on August 11. However, since then, the Tigers have gone just 4-15, and across the last 15 days, they rank dead last in OPS by more than 100 points. Dillon Dingler, who’s emerged as one of baseball’s best catchers this season, has slashed only .176/.239/.276 across his last 27 games, and Javier Báez’s return from injury has been addition by subtraction. Furthermore, Detroit’s bullpen has posted an ERA nearly a full run worse since the All-Star break, with future Hall of Fame closer Kenley Jansen starting to show some signs of his age and Kyle Finnegan giving up five runs while recording just one out in last night’s 15-2 result. Perhaps ironically, it’s only the Tigers’ rotation that has improved relative to the first half of the season; the team sent away both Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize at the trade deadline, but Troy Melton has stepped into the ace role nicely and Jackson Jobe has been good in three of his five starts.
The Twins chose the worst time to have their worst month of the season, as they went just 10-17 in August, but given that they underwent one of the most stunning complete tear-downs in MLB history at the 2025 trade deadline, the fact that they were in the playoff race for much of the season represents significant progress. Additionally, Minnesota finished with the sixth-highest OPS even in August, which is impressive given that its best player, Byron Buxton, was limited to just 11 games because of injuries and recorded only a .545 OPS in those games. Luke Keachsall has really come into his own as a batter since the All-Star break, slashing .321/.412/.500, and Kaelen Culpepper’s rookie season is off to a tremendous start. The Twins didn’t pitch well enough to back their offense up, though, ranking fifth-to-last in ERA in August. Joe Ryan, their only starter with better than a 110 OPS+ and more than five starts, has been on the Injured List for the last month, and the rest of their rotation simply hasn’t done enough to compensate. Minnesota’s bullpen has been a mixed bag; closer Yoendrys Gómez has a sub-3 ERA, and trade deadline acquisition A.J. Minter has a 0.83 ERA in 13 appearances, but Andrew Morris had a miserable end to August and Kody Funderbunk had a couple of rough outings as well.
Anderson, a converted reliever, shifted into the starting rotation on August 5, after the Skubal and Mize trades, and he’s been decent, recording 22.1 innings pitched across five starts and pitching to a 2.82 ERA. It’s his first extended starting experience in the majors, but he’s quickly gotten acclimated to a full-time starter’s load, and given that he made 30 starts with the KBO’s SSG Landers in 2025 and recorded a 2.25 mark, this performance should be somewhat sustainable. This season, Anderson has pretty favorable advanced numbers, owning a 62nd-percentile xERA and a 71st-percentile xBA. Furthermore, he’s been excellent at generating both chases and whiffs, and the Twins have whiffed at an above-average rate. Anderson has also done a great job forcing grounders, which should combat one of Minnesota’s biggest strengths. He has been somewhat prone to giving up hard hits, sporting a bottom-quartile average exit velocity, but the Twins rank 12th-to-last in that stat and are without Buxton, who’s one of baseball’s best sluggers when healthy. However, the location splits aren’t in his favor; he’s posted an ERA north of 5 on the road, and Minnesota’s offense has been slightly more effective at home.
Kremer has been solid since being acquired at the trade deadline, posting a 4.39 ERA in five starts, and he’s had a game score of at least 50 in three of the five. All in all, he sports a 30th-percentile xERA and 21st-percentile pitching run value, but he has his strengths and weaknesses. The right-hander has solid swing-and-miss stuff, posting a 71st-percentile whiff rate, and his ability to generate whiffs should combat one of the Tigers’ biggest strengths. Additionally, Kremer has effectively forced soft contact, with a top-third average exit velocity and hard-hit rate, and Detroit has made softer contact than average overall. His bottom-quintile grounder rate could be a problem, given that the Tigers have been the league’s best team at getting the ball in the air, but he has fairly significant home-road splits throughout his career and his sample size of career starts at Target Field (five games) isn’t large enough to look into. Given how awful the visitors’ offense has been as of late, the caliber of pitcher who I might peg to struggle is far below Kremer’s level.
Detroit Tigers at Minnesota Twins pick, best bet
Best Bet: Under 8.5 (+100)
12 games is obviously a tiny sample size, but the fact that Detroit has posted a .177/.257/.270 slash line in the last 15 days is pretty eye-popping. It’s not a surprise that each of the Tigers’ last three games had gone under until their pitching imploded on Monday and Tuesday.
Strong Lean: Dean Kremer Head-to-Head Strikeouts Moneyline (-129)
Across the same span, no team has struck out fewer times than the Twins, and although Anderson’s strikeout rate is higher than Kremer’s, he has struck out more than five batters in a game only once this season. Kremer has struck out at least five in seven of his 12 starts.
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