Guardians Lose Crucial Series Opener With Twins
The Cleveland Guardians sure don't like making things easy for themselves. Even with the offense seemingly finding their groove, the Guardians dropped an important series opener with the Minnesota Twins, 7-6.
Tanner Bibee and Pablo Lopez set the tone early with some fantastic pitching from both sides. There were only two total runs scored in the first four innings while each starter finished with at least five strikeouts.
But then a light seemed to flip and both Lopez and Bibee found themselves in trouble and giving up runs. Lopez made it through 5.2 innings of work giving up six earned runs and Bibee was credited with three of Minnesota's runs.
The Guardians' offense was in control as they climbed out to a 6-3 lead but the eighth inning. Max Kepler, Carlos Correa, and Byron Buxton all subbed out paving the way for a Guardians win.
However, Cleveland's overworked and thin bullpen couldn't seal the deal. Trevor Stephan gave up three runs and Eli Morgan struggled with command as the Twins walked off the game on a sacrifice fly.
Yes, there are many reasons to come out of this loss frustrated with how the bullpen struggled. But there are some bright spots to this game too.
The Guardians appear to be over their offensive hump. The team had their second straight game with a five-run inning which included stringing together hits, something that hasn't been done this season.
Andres Gimenez extended his hitting streak while driving in another RBI, Gabriel Arias and Will Brennan continue their hot streak tallying another multi-hit game, and the team was 5-for-11 with RISP.
The bats have been the main problem all season. If they can keep up this production then they'll finally start seeing themselves on the winning side of these one-run games.
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