Cleveland got to work quickly in making up for the shutout yesterday.

They had a 2-0 lead in the first inning, thanks to a bomb from noted Twin-killer Franmil Reyes, whose bat always seems to be getting in the way of Minnesota victories these days. In the second, Austin Hedges lined an RBI single, propping up a 3-0 advantage for the home nine. (Really, the home 26.)

Any time you stake Shane Bieber to an early lead, you run the risk of your afternoon getting lately quickly. Thankfully, this game was far from over.

It was a reasonable statline for anyone not named Shane Bieber, and a disappointing outing for the reigning Cy Young champion, who was already coming off an uncharacteristically mediocre appearance. Bieber wound up logging 5.1 innings, allowing three runs on eight hits, and striking out just six Twins after enjoying a record streak of strikeouts to start his season.

The three runs came one at at time; a sacrifice fly by Josh Donaldson got the Twins on the board in the third. Miguel Sano’s eighth homer of the year, a long drive to dead center, cut the lead to one in the fourth. Alex Kirilloff turned in a professional at-bat to even the ledger with a single in the sixth.

The bullpen took over on the side of Lasagna Town in rather bizarre fashion; we’re still not clear if or what injury forced Kenta Maeda out of the game, but after a bizarre return from commercial, Jorge Alcala began trotting in from the bullpen, and was given the time he needed to warm up on the mound in front of everyone.

For the most part, the bullpen continued their recent rebound. Alcala, Tyler Duffey, and Taylor Rogers spun three shutout frames; none of them recorded a strikeout, and each of them required a ground-ball double play to get out of their inning. You don’t see that much, but you saw it here today, unless you listened on the radio, or did not pay attention to the baseball game.

Cleveland threatened hard in the ninth. Hansel Robles put a man aboard with a one-out walk, then allowed a double into right field when he started working back into the zone.

Robles bounced back, striking out Jake Bauers on three perfectly-dotted fastballs — with a base open, the battery delivered one of them unintentional-style intentional walks, sending four straight out of the box to bring up Austin Hedges with the sacks packed and no funny business available.

Robles filled the count (after going 2-0 and 2-2) before inducing a towering pop-up to short, and sending us to the tenth inning.

WELCOME.

TO.

MANFREDBALL.

Notably, the Twins do not perform well in Manfredball. They’re still working on the whole baseball thing in general, so can you blame them? Having just recently won their first seven-inning game on Thursday, the Twins took their notorious 0-7 extras record into the Saturday contest at the corner.

Guess what we did? Guess guess guess guess guess!!!!

Did we get our free runner in from second base? OF COURSE NOT.

Did Alex Colome throw two pitches and immediately give up a two-run homer?

YOU. KNOW. IT. BABY.

NOW WHO WANTS SOME DUDS

STUDS: NO

DUDS: YES

DUD CALL

DUD TALK

“can’t play manfredball if you lose in 9”

We should have listened!