The Indians start their eight game road trip with a big four-game series in Minnesota this weekend.  In tonight’s series opener with the Twins, Carlos Carrasco takes the mound against LHP Nik Turley.

Turley was originally drafted by the New York Yankees in the 50th round in 2008 and spent his entire career in the minors; over the last three years he’s spent time in five different teams’ minor league systems.  He finally made his major league debut last Sunday against the San Francisco Giants when he surrendered 4 ER on 8 hits over 4 IP.  Now if I were making a normal prediction, I’d say that this sounds like golden opportunity for the Indians – a journeyman minor leaguer who even struggled against the Giants, a team currently ranked 29 out of 30 MLB teams in runs scored.  But this is the 2017 Indians we’re talking about here, and Turley is a lefty.  I can’t say I would be surprised if he completely shut the Indians down and held them to just a handful of hits.

Carrasco is coming off a solid start against the White Sox where he allowed 2 ER on 7 hits over 5.1 IP.  He’s had some struggles against the Twins over the years, but does tend to pitch better on the road.

Jason Kipnis is back in the lineup this evening, and Daniel Robertson is still batting second.  Even though I still think “huh” when I see that, but it worked well enough yesterday…I guess it’s worth another shot.

Lineups:

 

Indians Twins
2B
Jason Kipnis
2B
Brian Dozier
LF
Daniel Robertson
DH
Robbie Grossman
SS
Francisco Lindor
1B
Joe Mauer
DH
Edwin Encarnacion
3B
Miguel Sano
3B
Jose Ramirez
RF
Max Kepler
1B
Carlos Santana
SS
Jorge Polanco
C
Yan Gomes
C
Jason Castro
RF
Lonnie Chisenhall
CF
Byron Buxton
CF
Austin Jackson
LF
Eddie Rosario
SP
Carlos Carrasco
SP
Nik Turley

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