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The Twins hit a home run and a triple on Thursday, twice loaded the bases and scored a run on a wild pitch in their home opener at Target Field.
The Guardians managed only one extra-base hit, a futile double in a scoreless inning, recorded five softly-hit singles against Pablo López, and three times had runners thrown out at the plate.
Final score: Guardians 4, Twins 2. What a cruel way to spoil a party.
Four of the six hits López allowed came in Cleveland’s three-run fourth inning, consecutive soft singles by Steven Kwan, Andrés Giménez and José Ramirez, and another one later by Tyler Freeman. But the Twins went 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position, struck out 15 times, and stranded nine runners on base, thus managing only two runs and dropping their second home opener in three years.
“We obviously didn’t get the job done when we had the good opportunities and we had the people on base out there,” said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. “The punchouts do hurt you with runners in scoring position, at least giving yourself a shot and putting the ball in play.
“We have to have better at-bats, flat-out.”
Tanner Bibee, a second-year Cleveland righthander was responsible for halting one Twins rally after another with clutch strikeouts. Alex Kirilloff’s one-out, first-inning triple didn’t produce a run, not once Bibee struck out Byron Buxton and induced Max Kepler into tapping the ball back to the mound. A single, hit batter and an error loaded the bases with two outs in the second inning, but Edouard Julien ended the threat by taking a third strike, one of three times he did that in the game.
And two singles plus a passed ball in the fourth inning handed the Twins a chance to counter the Guardians’ early lead, but Christian Vázquez flew out to the center-field wall to douse that threat.
Bibee’s only costly mistake came in the fifth inning, when Julien lofted a fly ball in the first row of seats in left field.
The Twins managed another run in the seventh against Guardians relievers Tim Herrin and Hunter Gaddis, but again the inning felt like a missed opportunity. A walk to Willi Castro and a single by Vázquez opened the inning, and after a Julien strikeout, Kirilloff was hit by Herrin’s final pitch of the day, loading the bases.
The Twins, 0-for-6 this season with the bases loaded, did score a run when Gaddis bounced a pitch past catcher Bo Naylor, allowing Castro to race home. But Buxton struck out and Kepler popped up.
Carlos Correa had three hits for the Twins (3-3). The Guardians improved to 6-2.
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