Cleveland Trips Twins, 5-4

The Twins didn't win, but they didn't get blown out. I'll let you decide if this 5-4 Cleveland victory is worth getting enthused about.

Joe Mauer started the scoring with a solo oppo dong, his 11th of the year. Mauer has been better this year. Not MVP Mauer, but not clearly-suffering-from-post-concussion-syndrome Mauer, either. Made a nice run-saving stop at first later in the game, too.

Brian Dozier extended the lead to 2-0 with not a dong, but rather a double that scored Byron Buxton. The lead was short-lived, as they all are, as Tyler Duffey went to work on pretty much ending any goodwill he built up in 2015. His throwing error set up a bases-loaded situation in the third, which probable skiffle bandleader Lonnie Chisenhall exploited with a double to tie the game. A run-scoring grounder and a single extended Cleveland's lead to 4-2 by inning's end.

The rout was not on, surprisingly, as Buxton continued to swing a hot post-recall bat, crushing a dong into the left field bullpen with a runner on to tie the game in the 4th. Mike Napoli responded with an even more-crushed dong to the third deck in left to give Cleveland the lead again in the top of the 5th. In Duffey's limited defense, he did get out of the inning to pitch a full five. Grading on a curve, I guess it was less terrible than it could've been. He also struck out six and walked just one.

The Twins bullpen wasn't exactly lights out, as Cleveland left roughly 400 men on base in the last four innings (estimated), but they didn't turn it into a gong show, so grudging respect to Boshers, Wimmers, Rogers, Chargois, and Pressley.

However, the Twins offense was unable to do anything after Buxton's dong shot, despite Cleveland starter Danny Salazar exiting after just four innings with an arm issue of some sort. Five shutout innings with nothing more than mild threats from the hometown nine, and that was your ballgame.

ROBOT ROLL CALL

CHARTS & GRAPHS

Source: FanGraphs

Enjoy your weekend, everybody.