Cleveland 2, Twins 1: Bauer Outage

It was another engaging pitcher’s duel, but one that ended on the wrong side for the Twins. Backed by a dominant 2019 debut from righty Trevor Bauer, Cleveland took home a 2-1 victory in the second game of the opening series.

After a perfect first trip through the order, Bauer watched as Hanley Ramirez homered in the fourth to put his team on top. But the Twins would break through in the bottom half, with Nelson Cruz grounding in Jorge Polanco, who had reached third base on a triple into the right-field gap.

From there on out, it was all arms. Bauer went seven innings, struck out nine, and allowed just one hit. Minnesota’s only other threat came with runners on the corners in the 7th, but Bauer ended his outing by inducing a double play to escape the threat.

Meanwhile, Jake Odorizzi was enjoying a stellar start of his own. Through six innings, he matched Bauer with just one hit, and struck out eleven batters. This marks just the second time in major-league history that a team has opened the season with back-to-back 10+ strikeout outings from their starters. The first time? Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, for the immortalized 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks.

Cleveland finally broke through in the ninth. Amidst a single and a walk, Blake Parker threw a pair of wild pitches and ultimately allowed a go-ahead sac fly.

The Twins made things quite interesting off Brad Hand in the ninth — Byron Buxton doubled on a misplayed pop-up into no-man’s-land, but after back-to-back two-out walks to Nelson Cruz (intentional) and Eddie Rosario (debatable), C.J. Cron flied out softly to right field to end the game.

And with that, the Kansas City Royals hold sole possession of first place. It’s 2015 all over again!

STUDS:

SP Jake Odorizzi (6 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 11 K)

RP Adalberto Mejia (0.2 IP, 2 K)

DUDS:

RP Blake Parker (1 IP, 1 ER, BB, 2 WP)

RF Max Kepler (0-for-4, 2 K)

1B C.J. Cron (0-for-4, 2 K)

ROBOT ROLL CALL: