Life on the road continues to be good for the Minnesota Twins.
After a three-game sweep of the Chicago White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field, the Twins were back in Motown on Friday where they unloaded on the hapless Detroit Tigers to win 13-5 on 14 hits.
C.J. Cron and Max Kepler accounted for four extra-base hits. The rest of the run-scoring production was generated by 10 singles, including three hits apiece from Jorge Polanco and Nelson Cruz.
Kyle Gibson wasn’t exactly dominant. He scattered 10 hits and allowed four runs, but he didn’t walk anybody and struck out five over five innings to improve to 13-6.
Martin Perez gets the ball Saturday.
Extra innings…
-Even better than the Twins win was the Cleveland Indians loss. The sneaky-good Tampa Bay Rays sent four pitchers to the mound on Friday and shut out the Tribe on five hits. That means the Twins now lead the American League Central by 4.5 games.
-The Twins are 83-51. They are 39-29 at home, but 42-22 on the road. They have three more games at Detroit before they head to Boston. Cleveland is stuck in Tampa through the weekend, then comes home to play four games against the South Siders.
-The Twins’ starting rotation has shown a lot of improvement since earlier in the month, including Jose Berrios, who pitched a quality start with eight strikeouts over six innings on Thursday to improve to 11-7. It was his 18th quality start of the season.
-The Tigers are 39-93. They are well on their way to losing more than 100 games and yet more than 17,000 fans attended Friday’s Twins/Tigers game at Comerica Park.
-Twins reliever Tyler Duffey struck out the side in the sixth inning on 10 pitches and Trevor May struck out the side in the seventh on 14 pitches.
-A sweep of the Tigers sure would soften the blow of a loss at Boston.