Jaime Garcia could make his first and last start for the Twins Friday night against the Oakland Athletics.
The Twins had a buyer’s mentality when they traded for Garcia last week, but losing two of three to Detroit and three straight to the Dodgers quickly made Minnesota a team more likely to sell before Monday’s trade deadline.
According to Joel Sherman of the New York Post, the Yankees wanted Garcia before Atlanta traded him to the Twins and they could try to trade for him again.
“The Yankees were not offering the Braves top prospects for Garcia and almost certainly would be offering Minnesota something similar if this came to pass. Garcia is not the kind of big-strikeout guy the Yankees like (just 6.8 per nine innings), and part of his success has been holding opposing pitchers to three hits in 29 at-bats with 14 strikeouts and no walks. But the Yankees like groundball pitchers, and Garcia’s groundball percentage (55.4) is sixth among qualified starters, just ahead of Luis Severino (51.8).”
Meanwhile, while Garcia is on the mound for the Twins the Yankees could be on the phone with the A’s about ace pitcher Sonny Gray. FanRagSports’ Jon Heyman reports that the Yankees and Athletics are deep in talks but held up on which top prospects the Yankees would give up.
Heyman reported Thursday that the Twins were listening to offers for Garcia, Ervin Santana, Brian Dozier and Brandon Kintzler.
Eight losses in 12 games since the All-Star break has pushed the Twins down to third in the AL Central, four games behind the second-place Royals and six games behind the Indians.
Cleveland has won seven straight games and the Royals are riding an eight-game win streak.
