It’s a good time to be a sports fan in the Twin Cities, but it makes for some logistical difficulties.
The Minnesota Twins announced Monday that they are moving up the start time of Friday’s home game against the Texas Rangers with the NBA’s Western Conference finals also coming to Minneapolis this week.
Game 2 of the Timberwolves’ series against the Dallas Mavericks will tip at 7:30 p.m. CT. Therefore, the Twins changed first pitch from 7:10 to 6:10 p.m. CT.
“Moving first pitch time up by one hour was done to help accommodate ingress and egress to downtown Minneapolis throughout what is expected to be a busy evening,” the Twins said in a statement, “with Game 2 of the Western Conference finals between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Dallas Mavericks scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. tip that night at Target Center.”
The Timberwolves are in the conference finals for just the second time in franchise history, and the first time in 20 years. They took down the reigning champion Denver Nuggets 98-90 in Game 7 of their second-round series on Sunday night.
The Twins also had been flying recently until being swept in consecutive series by the New York Yankees and Cleveland Guardians. Minnesota won 12 games in a row earlier this season, part of a 17-3 run before their current six-game slide.