Guardians sweep series, 4-1 win knocks Twins under .500 for first time since April

Swept in a crucial three-game weekend series by AL Central-leading Cleveland, the Twins held onto hope and each other after Sunday's 4-1 loss at Target Field.

Aimed at regaining first place when the series began Friday, the Twins are now third in their division, 4½ games behind the Guardians and 2½ games behind the suddenly second-place Chicago White Sox.

On Sunday, they lost right fielder Max Kepler to injury after two innings, and the game after they put runners at the corners with no outs in the seventh inning but couldn't make a dent on Cleveland's 2-1 lead.

Add it up and the Twins were outscored 15-0 — 7-0 on Friday, 6-0 on Saturday and 2-0 on Sunday — in the three games before they put any runs of their own on the board, losing by just a combined six runs.

"It's not the series we were even close to looking for here," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "As disappointing as that is, there still are games to be played here and there's still games against this team, there's still games against other teams in our division — a lot of them actually — coming up.

"This thing is not over. It's not close to over."

Before they start their remaining 23 games at home Tuesday against Kansas City, Twins players, coaches and staff gathered for a previously scheduled team dinner Sunday night. They also have a needed day off on Monday.

While they wait for stars Byron Buxton and Jorge Polanco as well as Tyler Mahle, among others, to return from injuries, the Twins lost Kepler at least for Sunday's game and maybe more after he fouled a ball off his shin in the first inning and left the game after the second inning with what Baldelli called a "baseball-sized knot" near his knee.

No matter who comes or goes — or who remains injured — Baldelli promised his team has "the pieces to get this done," even against a Cleveland team that has won five of six after it had lost the five before that.

"We've lost some games this week because we didn't execute, we didn't play up to [our] abilities, not because I think we don't have the pieces," Baldelli said. "We have to simply elevate. Each and every one of us has to elevate right now and go play above where we've been this past week. That's plain and simple.

"We do have some pretty impactful players coming back. You always want them sooner than later, but I think they're going to be back."

At 69-70, the Twins are under .500 for the first time since they were 7-8 on April 23. They have lost nine of their past 11 games.

The Twins play the Guardians five more times, all of them in a five-game series that starts in Cleveland on Friday and includes a doubleheader Saturday. They play the second-place White Sox six more times, including a three-game series in Chicago to end the season.

"We have a lot of season left to go," said Twins starting pitcher Josh Winder, who gave up two runs in four innings — on solo homers by Andres Gimenez and Steven Kwan — in his first major league start since July 12. "That's the approach everyone's taking. You're going to have lulls in the season. Of course, you don't want them at this time, but with baseball there's so many ups and downs. Everyone's keeping an optimistic outlook. The off day tomorrow will help."

The Twins are 5-9 against Cleveland this season. Those nine losses have been by a combined 13 runs. Six of them have been by a single run, two of them by two runs. Cleveland led 2-1 Sunday before adding two runs off Jorge Lopez in the ninth inning.

"One thing we're not going to do is dig a hole and sit here and bury ourselves and say this thing is over," Baldelli said. "The other teams also know it's not over. What we have to do is pick ourselves up and show up on Tuesday. We've got to go out there and start winning some ballgames. We still have work to do and there are games to be won."