Punchless Twins miss knockout blow as Guardians salvage series finale 2-1

CLEVELAND — It might not matter. It probably won't matter. If the Twins play the rest of September like they played its first week, it definitely won't matter.

But still.

The Twins' AL Central lead was trimmed to six games with their 2-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field on Wednesday, a still-formidable margin with only 22 games remaining in the season.

But it's actually a 5½-game lead, because MLB no longer breaks ties for postseason berths with face-to-face playoff games. With Wednesday's win, the Guardians claimed the season series, seven games to six, so if Minnesota and Cleveland finish the season with identical records, the Guardians would claim the division title and the Twins would be excluded.

"My mind is not on that at all," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "We're just trying to win the next game."

No, the Twins weren't going to let one day of frustration at the plate, nine innings that produced only two measly singles, spoil their mood, not after racking up 47 runs in the previous five games of the road trip and winning four times. And not after shaking off any memory of last September's collapse in this same stadium.

"It's huge. Going to Texas and handling our business against a good team, and then coming here [against] a team that's played us really well every time we've played them, and handling our business," catcher Ryan Jeffers said. "Handling it the way we did shows us what kind of team we are and where we think we can go at the end of the year."

Like when Jeffers drove a Williams 98-mph fastball into the gap in left-center with Matt Wallner on base in the second inning, for instance. Myles Straw raced over and made a spectacular run-saving catch while diving away from the infield.

"That was an unbelievable play. You hate it because getting a run there would maybe start some momentum," Jeffers said with a shrug. "But they pay him to run around the outfield and make a lot of those plays."

Only once, when Willi Castro walked to open the fifth inning and stole second — his 30th steal of the season, the first Twin to reach that milestone since Ben Revere swiped 40 in 2012 — did the Twins manage to blemish Williams' day. Andrew Stevenson singled to left, scoring Castro and recording his first RBI as a Twin.

"He's a good pitcher. Anytime you throw close to 100, you've got to honor that," Jeffers said. "When you run into an arm like that, you're not always going to have days where you barrel everything up. Cleveland always has some good arms. Overall, we're leaving this series very happy with ourselves and what we've done."

And reasonably happy with Joe Ryan, too. The righthander pitched only four innings and they weren't easy ones, especially when a summer rainstorm halted the game as he was pitching the third inning. After a delay of just over an hour, Ryan returned to the mound, but he threw 89 pitches and faced only 17 hitters from a Guardians lineup that delights in extending at-bats with foul balls.

When they hit them in fair territory, Ryan allowed onlyfour hits, but two of the Guardians — Cleveland second baseman Andrés Giménez and left fielder Will Brennan — twice combined to make them count. Giménez doubled to lead off the second inning, then scored when Brennan turned an outside splitter into an opposite-field single.

Two innings later, Giménez cracked a one-out single, then stole second. After working the count to 3-2, Brennan pulled a fastball to the gap in right-center, scoring the only other run Cleveland would need.

The game also marked the bullpen debut for Louie Varland, who relieved Ryan and pitched three innings, allowing only one hit. But the Twins' four shutout innings by their bullpen were equaled by the Guardians' pen, with no Twin ever reaching second base against them.

By why dwell on the negative, the Twins seemed to ask. They accomplished enough.

"I mean, it's hard not to like the road trip. We did a lot of things we wanted to do for the last six days," Baldelli said. "I thought we actually played fine today. But that's life. We'll be fine."