After their latest clunker, the Twins can still split series with Indians

Ugh, that wasn't pretty to watch.

The mistake-prone Twins were walked off 5-2 on Wednesday by Cleveland and need to win Thursday's afternoon game to earn a split of the four-game series.

That was walkoff loss No. 11.

"They've come in a lot of different fashions," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "Probably at least half have been home runs. But there's been other things that have caused us to walk off with a loss. It's just kind of the nature of the game when you're on the road playing close games as we seem to. There just hasn't been a lot of separations in a lot of these games and it just comes down to the last couple of innings and you find yourself in that predicament. It has been a part of the storyline of the season."

As ugly as Wednesday's game was, Thursday's potentially could be quite entertaining.

The Twins will send Jose Berrios to the mound opposite of former Cy Young winner Corey Kluber - who's coming off his seventh complete game shutout on Saturday. He's had some hiccups this season but he's still 14-6 with a 2.63 ERA. Judging by his last outing, the Klubot is back.

Berrios will be making his first start of the season at Progressive Field. He's 2-0 with a 2.63 ERA in two career starts at Progressive Field. He's also 7-0 against AL Central opponents this season.

And the Twins can score more than two runs.

And the Twins can make fewer than 19 mistakes.

UPDATES

Twins manager Paul Molitor has been trying to find a day to rest Joe Mauer and settled on today. The timing seems odd because the Twins could split the series and Mauer is batting .296 against Kluber. But Molitor pointed out Mauer's 13 strikeouts against Kluber as one reason. If the Twins were still in the race, I bet Mauer at least DH's today.

Robbie Grossman will join the Twins in Detroit to continue his rehab from a strained hamstring. Part of the reason is that Target Field is set up for the Zack Brown concert.

Aaron Slegers has had setback in his recovery from a sore shoulder and, "is back to square one," Molitor said.