Coupled with a quartet of homers, Mike Clevinger did just enough to snap the Indians’ starting pitching slump as Cleveland captured the series finale with a 9-2 victory over the Twins on Thursday at Progressive Field. With the win, the Indians snapped a three-game skid and remained the only team in baseball without a losing streak of more than three games this season.
“I don’t think we needed to calm down. I think it helps,” Indians manager Terry Francona said. “We had gotten beaten around the ballpark for three days, so it definitely felt good. But every inning, they were putting pressure on Clev, so it wasn’t like you could sit back and take a deep breath, because there was traffic the first five innings.”
Minnesota left-hander Hector Santiago took the loss in his debut with his new team, allowing four runs on five hits. Two of those hits were home runs from Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana. Kipnis hit a solo shot to right-center in the first, which marked his career-high 18th homer of the season.
“I made two bad pitches all-around,” Santiago said. “They were two cutters that stayed in the middle. That’s it.”
Santana hit what turned out to be the decisive three-run blast to left in the third. Francisco Lindor crushed a two-run homer in the seventh to break the game open, and Jose Ramirez launched a solo shot in the eighth to round out the Cleveland infield slugfest.
Clevinger rejoined the rotation on Thursday due to an injury to Danny Salazar, and the rookie hurler tossed 4 1/3 innings of two-run ball. He was the only Tribe starter to complete four innings in the four-game set with the Twins after Salazar, Carlos Carrasco and Trevor Bauer allowed a total of 21 earned runs over 8 1/3 innings through the first three games.
Brian Dozier hit a long home run as the Twins second baseman stayed hot. Per Statcast™, his solo shot to left-center went 420 feet and left the bat at 104 mph. Before that, Dozier extended his hitting streak to 13 consecutive games with a single in the third.
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