CLEVELAND – The Twins lost both games of a doubleheader to the Guardians on Saturday, all but ending their chase for an AL Central championship. Though if they succumbed meekly in the first game, a 5-1 defeat, they did everything they possibly could to stave off the sweep in the finale — all five-plus hours and 15 innings of it.
But Guardians shortstop Amed Rosario, who drove in six of Cleveland's 12 runs on the day, hit a hard grounder that Twins shortstop Jermaine Palacios misplayed, and Austin Hedges scored the winning run in Cleveland's epic 7-6 victory at Progressive Field in a game that ended well after midnight.
"What a hard game to lose," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "But not a hard game to be a part of, because when you walk out of that, you admire the will of your players, the desire, the refusal to stop playing with everything that they have."
The math, however, appears all but impossible now. Combined with a noncompetitive Cleveland victory in the afternoon game, the Twins' seventh and eighth consecutive defeats to Cleveland drop them seven games back of the AL Central leaders — believe it or not, these teams were tied less than two weeks ago — and even a miraculous turnaround in their fortunes over the final two games here would leave them five games back with 15 to play, in a race they must win outright to qualify for the postseason.
"It's hard to swallow," Baldelli said. "Of course it's a challenge to look up and see where you're at. So don't look up — just keep playing, just keep playing that way."
"Playing that way" meant Nick Gordon capping a shocking five-run rally with a dramatic game-tying home run in the eighth inning. It meant center feilder Mark Contreras throwing out Oscar Gonzalez, the potential winning run, at the plate in the 12th inning. It meant Griffin Jax and Michael Fulmer pitching for the third time in four days.
It meant veteran Saints righthander Dereck Rodriguez — a COVID-19 replacement who joined the team between games Saturday and isn't even on the Twins' 40-man roster — contributing 11 outs before absorbing a loss he didn't deserve.
"It's rewarding, in a sense, but it's September. We're grinding for the playoffs, the postseason. We're trying to chip away," Jax said. "We have some pretty big pieces to our team that aren't there right now. But it's inspiring to come in and watch guys in here give everything they've got, every single day."
It didn't look that way for much of the day. One day after a calamitous collapse in the late innings, the Twins suffered in silence for the first 16 of Saturday's 24-inning day, managing only six lonely hits and just one run. They didn't record their first hit against rookie lefthander Kooper Pilkington until the sixth inning. And the lineup is stripped of all but a few regulars.
The Twins used five outfielders in the two games, for instance, none of whom was on the roster as recently as the All-Star break. That quintet went a combined 1-for-25 on the day.
Meanwhile, Rosario delivered a pair of run-scoring singles to help the Guardians take charge of the first game, and when he blasted a three-run home run midway through the nightcap, it seemed that the game was lost, the series was lost, and the season was lost, too.
But having been outscored 10-1 at that point, the Twins, whose bullpen has blown late leads six time to the Guardians this season, reversed the roles and victimized — temporarily — Cleveland's relievers. Pinch hitter Jake Cave reached on an infield error to lead off the eighth, Jose Miranda singled and Carlos Correa was hit on the hand, loading the bases. Gio Urshela drove home two runs with a line drive to center against Guardians righthander Trevor Stephan, and Gary Sanchez brought Correa home with a sacrifice fly, pulling the Twins within 5-3.
After Luis Arraez flew out against James Karinchuk, Gordon provided the latest in a series of big hits this summer — a game-tying, rally-capping, two-run homer. As the ball disappeared over the fence, Gordon raised his right hand to the sky in celebration as he rounded the bases.
The dramatic home run only tied the score, though, and the Twins quickly returned to their non-threatening ways. Aside from an intentional walk the next time Gordon came to the plate, 13 consecutive Twins went down in order, and the Twins wound up going 2-for-20 after Gordon's home run.
Both teams scored in the 13th inning, with Gordon driving in Correa on a sacrifice fly, a run quickly negated when Rosario came through with his fifth run-scoring hit of the day, a two-out, line-drive single off Rodriguez that drove in Ernie Clement.
And the game ended in anticlimactic fashion, on an error by a rookie shortstop, ending the Twins' longest game since an 18-inning loss to Tampa Bay on June 27, 2019, a game that was played before MLB started using automatic runners at second base in extra innings. Hedges trotted home, the remnants of an announced crowd of 24,449 roared, and fireworks went off.
The Twins simply walked off, their season effectively over.
"It's tough. We started spring training with a goal of winning the division and — 17 games left? It's a little tougher now," Correa said. "But we're going to come back tomorrow and go out and try to win games."
