September 7, 2021

Polanco’s big day helps Twins take Game 1 in Cleveland

One day it’s Nick Gordon, the next it’s Jorge Polanco.

A day after Gordon played a key role in a Twins win, Polanco stepped up Monday and showed why he is leading the team in every major offensive category. He went to the plate five times and banged out three doubles, a home run, scored two runs and drove in another in a 5-2 win over the Guardians.

Byron Buxton also is heating up since returning from the injured list. He had two hits Sunday and two more Monday, including his 11th home run of the season. Polanco and Buxton accounted for six of the Twins’ 12 hits.

Bailey Ober allowed only two runs over four innings (it’s not entirely clear to me why he exited after only 59 pitches) and Michael Pineda followed him by pitching three scoreless innings to earn the win in relief. And once again, closer Alex Colome got the job done for his 12th save of the season.

John Gant gets the ball Tuesday, followed by Joe Ryan Wednesday and Randy Dobnak Thursday to complete the four-game series against Cleveland.

Extra innings…

-Polanco leads the team in batting average, runs, home runs, runs batted in and stolen bases.

-The Twins are now 60-77 on the season and still in last place in the AL Central. In 2019, the year they won 101 games, they won their 60th game on July 21, a 7-6 walk-off win over the Oakland A’s.

-In the division, the Twins are 8-5 against Cleveland, 9-7 versus Detroit, 6-7 against Kansas City and 6-13 versus Chicago.

-In early April, the Twins were 5-2 after a 10-2 win over the Seattle Mariners on April 8. After that, they went 4-13 to end the month. I guess you could also say it ended the season.

-The Twins’ longest losing streak and winning streak of the season has been five games. Again, not so good and not so bad.

-Buxton’s injury problems have limited him to only 37 games this season as of Monday.

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.