August 4, 2016

Twins’ wrecking crew rolls on, knocks off Tribe 13-5

The Cleveland Indians have the No. 1 pitching staff in the American League, but you’d never know that if you dropped in to watch the last three games between the Twins and Tribe. Once again, the Twins, looking more like the 1927 Yankees of late, poured it on, banging out 15 hits and scoring 13 runs on Wednesday to chase Indians starter Trevor Bauer after two-plus innings.

And the Indians weren’t happy about it. Manager Terry Francona, pitching coach Mickey Callaway and pitcher Corey Kluber, who didn’t even play on Wednesday, all got tossed out of the game for arguing with the umps. Kluber apparently was jawing with an ump from the dugout before he finally got the heave ho.

Leading the way for the Twins was Joe Mauer, who had four hits, including two doubles and a triple. Eddie Rosario chipped in with three hits and Max Kepler and Brian Dozier had two apiece, including Dozier’s 21st home run. Every Twin had a hit except for Miguel Sano, who walked twice and struck out twice.

Starter Tyler Duffey was good enough, giving the Twins six innings with six strikeouts, but he also surrendered all five runs. Three relievers shutout the Indians the rest of the way.

Extra innings…

-The Twins have won four straight to tie their longest winning streak of the season. They will try to make it five straight on Thursday. One more win also would mean a four-game sweep of the Indians.

-New pitcher Hector Santiago, who comes to the Twins after they sent Ricky Nolasco and Alex Meyer to the Angels, gets the ball on Thursday. Santiago this season has compiled a record of 10-4 with a 4.25 ERA.

-Can the Twins just walk the Indians’ Mike Napoli? Napoli has homered in five straight games, including on Wednesday, to give him 27 on the season. Offensively, the Twins are locked in, but so is that guy.

And 54 years ago Wednesday this happened…

 

COMMENTS

Hi, I’m Rolf Boone, Twins fan.

I became a fan of the Minnesota Twins after a friendly wager in the early 1980s. I survived Ron Davis, the meltdown in Cleveland, Phil Bradley at the Kingdome and then marveled at a rising generation of stars and two World Series wins in 1987 and 1991. Brad Radke made the 1990s bearable, while Kirby Puckett’s eye injury, exit from the game and eventual death made it almost too much to bear. The new century ushered in more talent — Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, Joe Nathan, Torii Hunter, Justin Morneau — and consecutive seasons of playoff baseball, followed by consecutive seasons of losing baseball. A winning season returned in 2015. So here we are. Go Twins.