CLEVELAND – Waiting for a call about a baby, too, expectant father Brent Rooker celebrated his daughter's coming arrival with a seventh-inning home run that was the creamy middle to a 3-0 victory over Cleveland on Tuesday night at Progressive Field.
His skipper, Rocco Baldelli, and Baldelli's wife, Allie, welcomed their first child in Tuesday's wee hours.
Like Baldelli watching the clock Sunday at Tampa Bay, Rooker is awaiting a call home.
Leading off the seventh, Rooker hammered a first pitch left up in the hitting zone 421 feet into right center field that gave him — and his teammates — cause for early celebration.
It came two innings after shortstop Andrelton Simmons' single drove in Max Kepler for the game's first run that snapped a scoreless pitching duel between Cleveland starter Aaron Civale, in his first start since June 21 because of a finger injury, and the Twins' John Gant.
Designated hitter Luis Arraez's triple scored Simmons for a ninth-inning insurance run they didn't need. They didn't need it because Gant escaped a sticky third inning — thanks to Byron Buxton's grand slam-stealing glove work — and pitched five innings before Jorge Alcala, Juan Minaya, Caleb Thielbar and Alexander Colome each pitched a scoreless inning.
When it was all over and the Twins had won their third consecutive game, it was a good day for expectant fathers.
"Yeah, isn't that something?" Twins acting manager Bill Evers asked afterward.
