By Joe Christensen, Star Tribune (Minneapolis) –
CLEVELAND — It’s almost as if someone flipped a light switch on the Twins and Indians on July 27, turning Minnesota’s season suddenly brighter and Cleveland’s depressingly dark.
The Indians arrived at Target Field that day coming off an exhilarating comeback victory over Justin Verlander and the Tigers, while the Twins had just left Chicago and suffering through an embarrassing sweep.
But since that date, the Indians are 0-10, and the Twins are 8-3.
On Monday, Cleveland returned to Progressive Field coming off a fruitless nine-game road trip, and the Twins used the opportunity to pad their statistics in a 14-3 romp.
They hit four home runs, including two by Justin Morneau, giving him 200 for his career. He became the fourth Canadian major leaguer to hit 200 career homers.
The Twins scored 10 runs in the second inning, which started with Josh Willingham and Morneau connecting for back-to-back home runs. Cleveland righthander Zach McAllister could have escaped the inning with the Indians trailing 2-1, but second baseman Jason Kipnis made a throwing error with two outs, and the Twins added eight more runs.
Ryan Doumit finished off the scoring that inning with a three-run homer off reliever Josh Tomlin.
It was the most runs the Twins had scored in an inning since they scored 10 runs in the seventh inning of a 23-2 rout over these same Indians on June 4, 2002.
This game wasn’t quite like that one, but several Twins piled up some nice numbers:
— Right fielder Ben Revere went 4-for-5, raising his average to .331. He has 331 plate appearances, leaving him just four shy of qualifying for the American League leaderboard.
— Designated hitter Joe Mauer went 3-for-5 with two doubles and three RBI, raising his average to .321.
— Willingham’s home run gave him 29 for the season, matching his career high set last season for Oakland. He also had two RBI, raising his team lead to 83.
— Morneau went 3-for-5 with two homers and three RBI. It was his 17th multihomer game of his career and third this season.
All this offense made it pretty easy for Twins lefthander Scott Diamond (10-5), who held Cleveland to three runs (two earned) on seven hits over seven innings. He beat the Indians for the third time this season, and he didn’t give up an earned run against them all year until Carlos Santana’s two-run homer in the sixth inning Monday.
Diamond is the first Twins pitcher to reach double-digit victories this season, and none of their other starters has reached five.
For Cleveland, it was another ugly, lopsided loss. The Indians have now been outscored 88-31 during their 10-game losing streak. Prior to the game, Indians General Manager Chris Antonetti expressed support for third-year manager Manny Acta, saying he had no reason to think why he wouldn’t return to the bench next year.
Meanwhile, the Twins have outscored their opponents 75-38 in their past 11 games, with their three losses in that span coming by a combined four runs.
On July 27, the Twins trailed Cleveland by 9½ games in the standings. Now the Twins have pulled within two games of the third-place Indians and can pull even by the end of this three-game series.
