Guardians 4, Twins 2: Wasted opportunities

Royce Lewis had an opportunity to hit a grand slam in three straight games in the 1st inning tonight. A walk, an error, and a hit-by-pitch brought Royce to the plate with 2 outs and the bases loaded, but he popped out to end the inning. Unfortunately, that also started a pattern tonight with runners in scoring position.

Bo Naylor got the first run of the game for the Guardians on a solo homer to right in the 2nd inning.

Pablo Lopez allowed a single and a double to lead off the 3rd, but got the next two batters to strike out. Unfortunately, a wild pitch allowed the Jose Ramirez to score the 2nd Guardians run of the night.

In the bottom of the 3rd, Carlos Correa and Matt Wallner had a chance to score Max Kepler from 2nd, but failed to do so.

In the 4th, the Guardians loaded the bases with nobody out, but were only able to score 1 to make it a 3-0 game. Meanwhile, the Twins finally got on the board thanks to a Royce Lewis solo homer to left. If only that happened in his last at bat. Later, Jorge Polanco came to the plate with runners on the corners with 2 outs, but popped out to end the threat.

In the 5th, Christian Vazquez came to the plate with the same situation but struck out looking to end that threat.

In the top of the 7th, Will Brennan hit an RBI single off of Emilio Pagan to make it a 4-1 game. Cole Sands came in and pitched two clean innings in relief. In the bottom of the 9th, Michael A. Taylor hit a solo homer, but it wasn’t enough as the Twins lost 4-2.

The Twins were 0-9 with RISP, which is not a recipe for success.

Studs:

Max Kepler: 2-4

Michael A. Taylor: 2-4, HR

Cole Sands: 2.0 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 1 K.

Duds:

Carlos Correa: 0-4, 2 K, GIDP

Emilio Pagan: 1.0 IP, 2 H, 1 R

Jorge Polanco: 0-4, BB