Royce Lewis homered for the third consecutive game, but for the first time, it wasn’t enough to carry the Twins back from a deficit.

In a game where the Guardians lost their starting pitcher, Gavin Williams, to a knee injury after only one inning, the Twins failed to capitalize when they had runners in scoring position during their 4-2 loss Tuesday at Target Field.

Williams, who threw 30 pitches in the first inning, stumbled during his fifth pitch of the game and he didn’t return after the inning because of knee soreness. Instead, Cleveland’s bullpen outdueled Twins starter Pablo López.

The Twins’ lead in the American League Central Division slipped to six games.

López wasn’t at his sharpest throughout his six-inning outing, but he wasn’t really rewarded when he made quality pitches during jams, either. His five strikeouts were his third-lowest total in a start this season.

The Guardians had runners on second and third with no outs in the third inning. López struck out the next two batters before a run scored when catcher Christian Vázquez mishandled an inside fastball and the pitch deflected off his mitt toward the backstop.

In the fourth inning, Cleveland loaded the bases with a ground ball single to right field, a walk and an infield single. López didn’t allow another ball out of the infield, but a run scored on a groundout.

López permitted three runs in six innings, giving up eight hits and three walks. Michael A. Taylor may have saved a run against López’s last batter, José Ramírez, when he laid out for a diving catch in center field with speedy runner Steven Kwan on first base. López waited in front of the dugout for Taylor to congratulate him on the catch.

The Guardians added a run against Twins reliever Emilio Pagán in the seventh inning. After Ramón Laureano reached on an infield single, Carlos Correa intentionally let an infield popup fall to the ground to see if it would cause any confusion. Instead, it just switched the runner at first base. Andrés Giménez promptly stole second base and scored on Will Brennan’s single to center.

Lewis received a partial standing ovation when he came up to the plate with the bases loaded in the first inning. He hit grand slams in back-to-back games, the first rookie in MLB history to accomplish the feat, and the Twins set the stage for another dramatic moment through a walk, an error and a hit batsman.

In a seven-pitch at-bat, Lewis finally looked human when he ended the inning with a flyout in shallow right field.

The Twins went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position.

Lewis had to wait for his second at-bat when he led off the fourth inning. Facing Guardians reliever Hunter Gaddis, Lewis crushed an elevated fastball past the fence in left field for his 11th home run in 51 career games. Lewis has homered five times in the last seven games.

The Twins stranded two runners in the fourth and fifth innings before Guardians relievers retired 11 of 12 batters. Taylor drilled a solo home run to right field in the bottom of the ninth inning, his 20th of the season to set a career high, but the Twins’ two solo homers couldn’t make up for the nine men they left on base.