CLEVELAND _ Mike Clevinger poured some lighter fluid on the Twins-Indians rivalry on Saturday. But the Twins unloaded a big fire extinguisher on the AL Central pennant race.
Jorge Polanco, robbed of his 22nd home run of the season by Friday's rainout, simply repeated it on Saturday to win the first game, Miguel Sano crushed a tie-breaking grand slam in Game Two, and the Twins all but terminated the Indians' three-year reign atop the division. The 2-0 and 9-5 victories in Saturday's doubleheader fatten Minnesota's AL Central lead to 5 { games, reduce their magic number to single digits with more than two weeks remaining, and all but guarantee the Twins' first division championship in nine years.
Polanco and a gutsy no-mistakes performance by the Twins bullpen won the opener, a makeup of Friday's postponement, and the Twins' homer-heavy offense took care of the regularly scheduled game, with Eddie Rosario, Nelson Cruz and Sano blasting Indians' pitching and overcoming a 5-2 Cleveland lead. It also featured, perhaps, a coming-of-age announcement by rookie Brusdar Graterol, who earned his first career victory by dominating the six batters he faced with the first 100-mph pitches thrown by a Twin in more than a decade.
Punctuating an otherwise impeccable day for the Twins was an off-handed comment by Clevinger, the Indians' hottest pitcher. Polanco's two-run shot off Clevinger was all the offense the Twins' bullpen would need to hand Clevinger his first loss since June 28 after 10 straight wins, but the pitcher didn't go quietly.
Asked afterward whether he was surprised that Polanco was able to connect with his 1-0 change-up and hit it out, the 28-year-old right-hander cracked, "I mean, after last year, are you surprised?" The remark was an apparent reference to Polanco's 80-game suspension in 2018 for failing a steroids test.
No telling whether the Twins were offended. But if the insinuation provided any motivation for the fireworks show that came afterward, the Twins found a good way to express their displeasure.
Rosario was the first to strike, pulling a Tyler Clippard pitch into the right-field seats in the first inning. After a rocky performance by Game Two starter Lewis Thorpe, who gave up two homers and five runs in 3 1/3 innings, Nelson Cruz triggered the Twins' comeback by golfing an 0-2 slider into the front row of the left field seats with Polanco on first base, his 397th career home run.
And after Polanco tied the score with a double off the wall in the eighth inning, Oliver Perez loaded the bases with back-to-back walks, one intentional. Nick Goody was summoned to pitch to Sano, a bad mistake: Sano clobbered Goody's first pitch more than 420 feet to left field, the first grand slam of his career.
That win was a stark contrast to the Twins' Game One victory, which was won by Polanco, at bat and in the field, and by five relievers who divvied up the nine innings in historic fashion, throwing the first all-bullpen shutout in Twins' history.
"Every guy we turned to just continued to step up and perform at a high, high level," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "And we needed something like that against the team we're playing, and against Clevinger, just because of how good he is and what he does."
Devin Smeltzer, whose history against the Indians is a little messy _ a 7.98 ERA in three previous outings _ got the day started with two quiet innings and one tense one. But after loading the bases by hitting a batter, allowing a single and walk, Smeltzer escaped his bases-loaded jam when Polanco dove to snag Carlos Santana's scorching line drive to end the inning.
"Oh, that was huge," said a grateful Smeltzer, whose three-inning start is the shortest ever in a Twins shutout. "They weren't biting at my pitches. I had to attack them ... I wasn't going to walk in a run there. He hit it to the right guy, and it was a great play."
Had it all the way, Polanco said. "I thought I was going to catch it off the bat," Polanco said through an interpreter. "I took a little longer to dive for it because it was moving away from me."
Zack Littell took over for two easy innings, allowing only a popup that fell in short center field for a cheap single. The hit extended the inning and meant he had to face All-Star shortstop Francisco Lindor as the tying run, but an 0-1 slider resulted in a harmless foul popup to end the inning.
"(My) mindset is to always attack. It doesn't really matter who's in the box," said Littell, who has now recorded 8 2/3 shutout innings in six appearances against Cleveland this season. "I tried to stick with that. I'm going to keep trying to stick with that."
Tyler Duffey and Sergio Romo followed, each putting a runner on base but avoiding a run-scoring hit. And Taylor Rogers recorded the final five outs, striking out four Indians in doing so.
It's the first time in franchise history that the Twins have shut out an opponent in a game in which no pitcher threw more than three innings.
The Twins, frustrated by the sequence of events Friday that cost them a Jake Odorizzi start in such a critical series, looked overmatched at times by Clevinger, who had not lost a game since June 28, 13 starts and 10 straight wins ago. Five of the first eight Twins struck out swinging, in fact.
But in the third inning, the spell was briefly broken. Max Kepler lined a one-out single to right field, bringing up Polanco, who before the game had shrugged, "My longest (home run) of the season," when asked about his officially-never-happened home run of the night before.
It didn't take him long to get it back. Polanco looked at a high curveball for ball one, then pounced on an 86-mph change-up, up and away. It cleared by center field wall by several feet, and produced the game's only runs.
"Rarely do the baseball gods kind of shine upon people like that," Baldelli said with a smile.
