CLEVELAND — "The young guys stole the show last night, and that's great," Twins manager Paul Molitor said as his team prepared for the second game of this four-game series in Progressive Field. "Hopefully we can keep swinging the bats the way we showed we could last night."
They've been doing a lot more of that lately. The Twins scored 12 runs on Monday against the Indians, the seventh time this year they have reached double digits — and all seven have come since June 21.
"I can't really explain that," Molitor said. "We're hitting more homers. [Max] Kepler's [had a] power surge, [Brian] Dozier has had a little bit of a surge in the past six weeks. Guys are getting better pitches, they're taking walks at least a little bit. We seem to be finding a rhythm fairly frequently."
One walk in particular stood out on Monday — Eddie Rosario took ball four on a 3-2 pitch from Austin Adams in the third inning, ending his streak of 167 plate appearances without one. It's his first unintentional walk since April 15, and third of the year.
The Twins' task gets tougher tonight with Carlos Carrasco on the mound for the Indians. Carrasco's 2.45 ERA would lead the American League if he had enough innings to qualify; he's about 11 short at the moment. In his last seven starts, batters have hit only .148 against him, and his ERA is only 1.61. He allowed the Twins only four hits over 6 2/3 innings when they met last month.
Here are the lineups for tonight's game:
TWINS
Dozier 2B
Mauer 1B
Kepler RF
Sano DH
Suzuki C
Escobar SS
Rosario CF
Polanco 3B
Santana LF
Gibson RHP
INDIANS
Santana DH
Kipnis 2B
Lindor SS
Napoli 1B
Ramirez 3B
Chisenhall RF
Naquin CF
Almonte LF
Perez C
Carrasco RHP