If a person of a certain age told you the 2026 Chicago White Sox would be .500 at Memorial Day, you would have thought dementia had arrived.
If a person of any age told you the 2026 Minnesota Twins would be just one game under .500, you would have assumed the ingestion of a bunch of funny chemicals.
If you were then told both those teams currently qualify as wild cards, you would have sent for the van with the barred windows and the big guy carrying a straitjacket.
Naytheless, that’s the situation as
the Twins arrive at the Rate to begin a four-game series this afternoon.
The Sox will start lefty Anthony Kay, who has a meh 4.27 ERA but has been sharp of late, giving up just three earned runs over his last three starts. That was despite the fact he walked seven over 16 1/3 innings in those games and is averaging a free pass every two innings.
The Twins counter with righty Zebby Matthews, who has recovered from 2025’s horrible 5.56 ERA to sport a nifty 1.38 so far this season, though that only covers two starts and 13 innings. Over those two games, Matthews only walked one while striking out 11.
Matthews will face a White Sox lineup that has 5´6´´ newcomer Rikuu Nishida, just up from Charlotte (where he was hitting .347), in right field and batting ninth:
Kay will face a Twins lineup that has almost-newcomer Alex Jackson catching in just his second big league game.
First pitch is scheduled for 1:10 p.m. Central on a beautiful day for holiday baseball, 80° and sunny with very light wind toward left. Usual broadcast suspects.
