Cleveland hit a home run in a franchise record 20th consecutive game, but the Twins hit two that helped them earn a 5-2 win on a pleasant Monday night at Progressive Field.
Cleveland designated hitter Franmil Reyes hit a two-run, no-out homer in the fourth inning, but the Twins still led 3-2 after they scored twice in the first and once in the third.
They did so on a night when second baseman Jorge Polanco went 4 for 5 with a home run and three doubles. Byron Buxton's fifth-inning home run was his first since he came back from a fractured hand.
Polanco's blast into the left-field grandstand was his 27th home run this season and it gave the Twins a 3-0 lead off Cleveland starter Logan Allen, who lasted only into the fifth inning.
Reyes' homer stretched that streak into a club record that dates to Aug. 15. Cleveland has hit 34 home runs since then. The last streak in the majors longer than 19 games in a single season was Oakland's 21 consecutive games from June 25 to July 21, 2019.
Buxton's solo homer turned a 3-2 lead into a 4-2 lead in the fifth inning and the Twins added one more run in the sixth while pitchers Bailey Ober and Michael Pineda combined to pitch seven innings together.
Ober started the game and went four innings, giving up that homer to Reyes before Pineda came on to throw three scoreless innings.
It was his first action in nearly a month because of a mild oblique strain.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli and pitching coach Wes Johnson decided to tag-team them together in a move that lessens Ober's pitch count and load while getting Pineda back into action.
Twins coach Bill Evers managed the game while Baldelli is back in Minnesota for the birth of his and wife Allie's first child. Cleveland, too, was coached by an acting manager. DeMarlo Hale is managing for Terry Francona, who hasn't managed since July because of health issues.
