The short-handed Twins, a team that currently is without Carlos Correa, Brooks Lee, pitcher Joe Ryan and reliever Brock Stewart, still found a way to come up with enough pitching and hitting to sweep a doubleheader from the Cleveland Guardians on Friday and move within 1.5 games of the top spot in the division.
“I thought we just outplayed and out-baseballed them today, if that’s a word or whatever,” said Twins third baseman Royce Lewis to the Associated Press. “That’s how we played the game.”
Bailey Ober, now clearly the team’s ace, stepped up and pitched scoreless ball for six innings with nine strikeouts in the 4-2, Game 1 win. He improves to 12-5 with a 3.52 ERA.
Carlos Santana and Ryan Jeffers backed him with two home runs and the bullpen took care of business the rest of the way. Jorge Alcala got into a little trouble in the seventh, but Griffin Jax pitched a scoreless eighth and Jhoan Duran struck out the side in the ninth to record his 16th save.
In Game 2, the starting pitching wasn’t quite as sharp — Louie Varland allowed three runs across four-plus innings — but relievers Cole Sands, Caleb Thielbar and Trevor Richards were perfect over the final four-plus frames. Sands picked up the win to improve to 6-1 and Richards, who was a disaster in his last appearance against the Cubs, closed out the ninth on nine pitches, eight of them landing for strikes, to notch his first save for the Twins.
Minnesota scored runs anyway they could in the 6-3 win. Willi Castro stole home (!) and Christian Vazquez, standing at third base, induced a balk from the Cleveland pitcher by threatening to do the same. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt disagreed with the call and was eventually ejected from the game. The big blow, though, was the monster three-run shot launched by Twins slugger Matt Wallner.
Simeon Woods Richardson gets the ball Saturday.
Extra innings…
-Injury realities: Starting pitcher Ryan has effectively been lost for the season with a Grade 2 teres major strain in his right arm area, according to MLB.com. Also: Reliever Brock Stewart is set to have season-ending shoulder surgery and rookie Brooks Lee has landed on the 10-day IL with right biceps tendinitis. Correa is expected back in mid-August.
-Prior to the doubleheader, Twins radio play-by-play voice Kris Atteberry shared this interesting statistic: The Twins and Guardians were 42-42 in their previous 84 doubleheader games.
Out of curiosity, I decided to search Baseball-Reference.com box scores for random doubleheaders between the two teams and the first one I came across — played on July 31, 1977 — was (of course) a split between the two teams.
The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer
“The Indians snapped their six- game losing streak with a 9-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins in the first game of Sunday’s doubleheader, but they set the stage for another skein by dropping the second game, 9-4.
“A Helmet Day crowd of 33,968 watched the Indians, the best defensive team in the American League, kick the ball all over the Stadium turf. The Tribe committed eight errors in the two games, more than 10 per cent of their entire season total of 76.”
Sources: MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com