Long ago, the concept of a “replacement player” in baseball took on a larger meaning than just something related to labor disagreements. The famed WAR statistic, Wins Above Replacement, has for years attempted to quantify just how valuable any baseball player is, as compared to a mythical replacement player.

An entire team of replacement-level players - the type who are always available, generally making the league-minimum salary - would win about 50 games in a year, according to Baseball Prospectus.

This is, in many ways, viewed as the absolute basement of baseball, a point so low that it should be virtually impossible to go any lower. Which makes it pretty funny, and faintly legendary, when a team manages to win fewer than 50 games: the ‘03 Tigers, that lost 119 games, or the ‘18 Orioles, that lost 115.

I’m not saying that this year’s Kansas City Royals will definitely lose 113 or more games, and get themselves into the historical running as one of these vaunted sub-replacement-level teams. But what I’m saying is that if they were going to do so, their latest series against the Twins is exactly what it would look like.

Pablo López threw one of the best games in Twins history, a four-hit shutout in which he struck out 12, and the Twins kicked dirt on the hapless Royals, 5-0.

López threw 100 pitches exactly, and never really seemed like he might do something so rash as giving up a run. The Royals, for their part, left observers wondering how they’d even managed to win 24 games this year. They look like a video game team being controlled by the computer with the settings turned way, way too low.

The slightly amazing part is that López, who lowered his ERA to 3.89 on the year and leads the pitching staff in both innings pitched and strikeouts, is definitively not the team’s best starter. In fact, he’s pretty much been their fourth-best starter this year, and given Kenta Maeda’s resurgence, could easily be considered the team’s fifth-best starter right now.

This is an awfully nice problem to have. It’s not a thing I remember ever happening with the Twins. It’s also the only reason the team has a winning record this season.

One of the not-nice problems the Twins have is that, unfortunately, other teams get to play the Royals too. Minnesota has now re-opened a two-game lead in the AL Central, but Cleveland gets to play four games against Kansas City before the All-Star break, whereas the Twins have to play Baltimore for three games instead.

Edouard Julien and Ryan Jeffers homered for the Twins, the latter after he helped a run to score by getting hit in the neck by a throw to the plate. That’s got to be close to Peak Catcher right there - hitting a home run after taking a throw to the neck.

Make it four straight wins for the surging Minnesota Lynx, who took down Indiana 90-83.

It could have been billed as a battle between the top two picks in this year’s WNBA draft, with the Fever’s top pick Aliyah Boston taking on Minnesota’s second pick, Diamond Miller.

In the event, though, Boston had 22 points and nine rebounds, while Miller had one point and three turnovers. So… you win that one, Indiana.

Napheesa Collier was once again the offensive engine for the Lynx, scoring 32 points on 11-of-23 shooting. Collier is third in the league in points per game this year, with 22.6, behind only Jewell Loyd of Seattle and Breanna Stewart of New York.

Kayla McBride chipped in 21 points, and journeyman (journeywoman?) point guard Lindsay Allen added 16.

Since their 0-6 start, the Lynx have played eight games against the current bottom four in the WNBA standings (Los Angeles, Indiana, Phoenix, and Seattle), and have won seven of them.

The St. Paul Saints may be many things, but you can’t say they’re predictable. After sweeping Gwinnett in six games, scoring double-digit runs in five of them, they’ve now started a series with Iowa with two near-identical losses. Tuesday, they lost 3-2 and got three hits; Wednesday, they lost 3-2 and got four hits.

Maybe the most interesting thing about this game was the presence of third baseman Andrew Bechtold on the mound, in a key situation. Bechtold pitched the sixth inning, with St. Paul trailing 2-1, and set Iowa down in order. Apparently he touched 95 on the radar gun, and threw four of eight sliders for strikes.

Oddly, it doesn’t seem like Bechtold has been a pitcher at any level past high school. He played a couple of years at Maryland in college, without much distinction in any way, then transferred to Chipola College (a junior college) and ripped the cover off the ball there, but he doesn’t seem to have pitched for either team. He pitched twice in the minors in 2019, but I assume that was “position player throws an inning in a lost cause” duty.

But now they’re calling him “Bechtani” and bringing him into close games, and he’s throwing 95. Maybe Ohtani is really, really going to change baseball, and we’re going to see more guys like this. Baseball all-rounders! The game’s turning into cricket!

TONIGHT’S SLATE

AURORA vs Chicago City (at Flint, MI), 2pm
SAINTS at Iowa, 6:38pm

ON DECK

TWINS vs Baltimore, Friday
LYNX vs Phoenix, Friday
LOONS vs Austin, Saturday

CROWS at Thunder Bay, Friday
DOUBLOONS vs Real Monarchs, Sunday