Austin Hedges and rookie Petey Halpin had back-to-back sacrifice flies in a pivotal sixth inning, propelling the Cleveland Guardians to a 5-2 victory over the visiting Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night.
Hedges brought home Kahlil Watson with the go-ahead run after the Guardians loaded the bases with no outs against Mike Paredes (0-3). After a double steal, Halpin’s sacrifice fly off Taylor Rogers drove in Travis Bazzana after a replay review overturned an out call at the plate to make it 4-2.
Colin Holderman (5-2) retired one batter for the win, which pulled Cleveland within a half-game of the first-place Chicago White Sox in the American League Central. Cade Smith worked the ninth for his major-league-leading 29th save in 32 opportunities.
Chase DeLauter, Brayan Rocchio and Gabriel Arias each had two hits for the Guardians, who are 43-23 against Minnesota since the start of the 2022 season. Cleveland has won three of its last four.
Bazzana added a two-out RBI single off Rogers in the seventh, scoring Kyle Manzardo to make it 5-2.
The Guardians went ahead 2-1 in the third with a pair of runs charged to rookie Kendry Rojas, who made a spot start for Minnesota. Steven Kwan doubled in Hedges, then scored on Rocchio’s single off Paredes.
Ryan Jeffers hit a solo homer off Parker Messick in the first for Minnesota, extending his on-base streak to 15 games. The Twins tied it at 2-2 in the fourth on a Royce Lewis grounder that saw Messick and Bazzana commit errors to score Josh Bell.
Messick, making his first appearance since pitching a scoreless inning in the All-Star Game, struck out six without a walk in 5 2/3 innings. The left-hander gave up two runs (one earned) on four hits.
Minnesota lost its fourth straight, all on the road, to fall 3 1/2 games out of the final AL wild-card position. Rojas allowed two runs on one hit in 2 1/3 innings, walking two with two strikeouts.
Bell, who reached 10 years of service time, went 1-for-4 with a double.
–Field Level Media
