Guardians 2, Twins 1: Cleveland Wins it Quickly

[Ted Schwerzler]

Simeon Woods Richardson pitched a gem of a game, but the Twins lineup couldn't come through with key hits. The Cleveland Guardians won a matchup that took less than two hours to complete. A series deciding tilt is on tap for Sunday.

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

Box Score
SP: Simeon Woods Richardson 7.0 IP, 4 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 7 K (89 pitches, 62 strikes)
Home Runs: N/A
Bottom 3 WPA: Matt Wallner (-.136), Max Kepler (-.134), Trevor Larnach (-.114)

Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

Kwan Krushes Early
While there was a great celebration for Terry Ryan and Rick Stelmaszek’s induction into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame, the timing of the game was impacted. That’s always a tough situation to manage for the starting pitcher. First pitch was delayed by more than 40 minutes, and Simeon Woods Richardson was tasked with working around his routine. Steven Kwan stepped in and quickly greeted the Minnesota starter with a solo shot. Rocco Baldelli’s starter responded with three quick outs, including a pair of strikeouts.

Woods Richardson then responded by shutting the Guardians down. He blanked them in four consecutive innings and racked up six strikeouts during that stretch. Unfortunately for the Minnesota starter, his lineup couldn’t do any damage against Gavin Williams. Bo Naylor took Woods Richardson deep to open the sixth inning and the Twins found themselves down by a pair.

Woods Richardson Keeps Minnesota In It
There has been arguably no greater level of development for a big league player within the organization than what Woods Richardson has done over the past year. Now touching 96 mph with his fastball and pitching deep into games, he looks like an entirely different starter. Despite giving up a pair of solo shots, he was nothing short of lights out on Saturday. The lineup couldn’t get much going behind his seven innings of work, but Matt Wallner did cash in a sixth inning leadoff double for Willi Castro to make it 2-1.

Josh Winder gave the Twins big innings on Wednesday against the Cubs and showed up against on Saturday. Another multi-inning outing, this time two frames, saw him shut down Cleveland and send it to the bottom of the ninth with Minnesota needing a run. Emmanuel Clase toed the rubber for the Guardians.

The Twins went down in order against Clase and finished the evening with just four hits. Baldelli’s lineup went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left four on base.

Notes
The Twins learned that Joe Ryan’s timeline could potentially have him out for the season. David Festa and Zebby Matthews will be tasked with stepping up in a big way. Similar to what they did last season with Dallas Keuchel, they could opt to bring back veteran Rich Hill in order to eat innings.

Recently designated reliever Josh Staumont has signed with the Chicago Cubs. He will begin at Triple-A but should be back in the big leagues.

Matt Bowman has exercised his opt out with the Twins. The club must promote him to the big leagues by Monday or he will again be a free agent.

Justin Topa has been pulled off his rehab assignment. Although he had shown promising results, the velocity hasn’t been where it needs to be. Now the Twins are ending his road back as he deals with arm fatigue.

Both Terry Ryan and Rick Stelmaszek were inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame Saturday. The turnout was significant.

Remember that through both AL Central series the Twins are offering fee free tickets.

What’s Next?
Rookie David Festa goes on Sunday afternoon with a series win on the line. He faces Tanner Bibee for Cleveland, and the Twins can get back to within 1.5 games of the AL Central lead with a victory. They will welcome Kansas City to Target Field on Monday.

Postgame Interviews

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

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[BH67]

Encouraging signs for starter and bullpen depth tonight. The bats were quiet but Cleveland had to use its elite bullpen arms to secure the win. Three out of four is a good possibility tomorrow for a team fighting hard despite significant injuries. 

[Hashim]

Woods Richardson’s has been good. Now he just needs to work on cutting back his home run per 9. Maybe use his off speed more and learn to get more movement on his fastball. His run support has been horrendous too. 

[Dman]

Facing Williams and his 98MPH fastball is no easy task, but this offense tends to go missing in big moments against good arms.  Would have liked to see more patience at times, but Williams was not afraid to throw strikes.  Needed guys to be dialed in but they just couldn't get it done.

Very pleased with SWR's start despite the two solo shots.  Going 7 and giving up just two runs should be enough.  Offense needs to generate more runs if they want wins.

A good game we just came out on the wrong end.  When it comes to the pen wars Cleveland is setup to win.  The Twins need to damage early and often to find wins against this club.

[Parfigliano]

16 minutes ago, Hashim said:

Woods Richardson’s has been good. Now he just needs to work on cutting back his home run per 9. Maybe use his off speed more and learn to get more movement on his fastball. His run support has been horrendous too. 

SWR did his job...7 IP and 2 runs.  Sticks did not.  Story of the game

[Squirrel]

5 minutes ago, Parfigliano said:

SWR did his job...7 IP and 2 runs.  Sticks did not.  Story of the game

Yep

[wabene]

Super nice to see Simeon bounce back from from the last 2 outings. Winder has looked much better his last 2 times out. That is unexpected.

[Parfigliano]

4 minutes ago, wabene said:

Super nice to see Simeon bounce back from from the last 2 outings. Winder has looked much better his last 2 times out. That is unexpected.

Winder.  Got guys out that needed gettin out.

TC is hanging with CLE when all the chatter says they should not.  

I like our odds.

[Rosterman]

Tough loss.

Wanted to see Martin and Castro be aggressive on the basepaths. Whole new game if Jeffers hadn't been thrown out at third. Tough read for the runner.

SWR ws exceptional against a decent lineup. 7 innings! Great job. Only 8 more starts for him befroe season's end.

[Fatbat]

SWR is looking dominant. He has that intimidating big dog mound presence. We gotta win tomorrow to send a message to the Guardians that they will be chasing us the rest of the year. 

[thelanges5]

Obviously would have been nice to take this one. Team was 60-55 at this time LY. They are doing well especially considering that Lewis, Correa, and Buck have only been on the field 17 times together. 
 

Go get em on Sunday! LFG Twins!

[Parfigliano]

23 minutes ago, thelanges5 said:

Obviously would have been nice to take this one. Team was 60-55 at this time LY. They are doing well especially considering that Lewis, Correa, and Buck have only been on the field 17 times together. 
 

Go get em on Sunday! LFG Twins!

A team not playin.  Still holdin  serve.  

[Parfigliano]

1 hour ago, Fatbat said:

SWR is looking dominant. He has that intimidating big dog mound presence. We gotta win tomorrow to send a message to the Guardians that they will be chasing us the rest of the year. 

Im guessing CLEV was lookin into this weekend where they were lookin TC is shorthanded.  Now shorthanded.  TC took 2.  How about 3.

 

[SwainZag]

Tough loss.  Cleveland played superb defense tonight, especially compared to the product they showed yesterday.  The play Kwan made to force Jeffers at 3rd in the Third inning really set the tone.  I'm not putting on Jeffers, but if he makes to third, Twins are looking at bases loaded no outs with 2-3-4 coming up.  They get the force out and end up with zero runs.  SWR was great.  Take care of business tomorrow.

[CRF]

SWR was just fine. He gave us everything we needed him to. The problem is...SCORING RUNS! When we get guys on, they die there. No clutch hitting at all. The times we get two, or even three, runners on, with no outs...and then don't score...has to be right up there with the worst teams in MLB. That has to stop. Yesterday was a winnable game, and we blew it. We HAVE to win today! Can't let Cleve get out of here with a split. 

[mikelink45]

Wallner gets a double and is the lead in bottom three WPA - no wonder I pay no attention to this stat.  Not sure why we see this every game.

Richardson was great - innings pitched, runs allowed - all add up to a real quality start. 

[karcherd]

Richardson pitched great, hopefully he can continue this thru September.

[Blyleven2011]

Nobody has posted about the ceremony for Ryan and stelmaszek into twins hall of fame expect the OP ...

It was a full house of respectful past players , managers and other teams GM's ...

Ryan and stelmaszek were both class acts to the twins organization ...

Ryan tried his best to bring a championship to Minnesota  by working hard , evaluating prospects and drafting , working   under a limited payroll  ( he was not a total system failure )  , sure he made some mistakes but he had my respect as he was always straightforward to the fans ...

Stelmaszek , the players all loved him  ...

Welcome to the twins hall of fame terry and Rick ...

[Doctor Gast]

IMO something different should be done about these long overdone ceremonies which is a big disadvantage to the home SP. I wonder how many games we've lost because of them? In spite of that Sims pitched a great game, CLE was a different team with that lead-off HR. Jeffers miscue didn't help where we needed to complete every opportunity we had. Once CLE pitching machine started it was hard to stop. It was also tough w/o Correa & Lewis in the line-up. Big mistake sending Varland down again we desperately need him up here to take up some slack. 

[JD-TWINS]

Jeffers at 3B was a tough one to swallow - odd play. SWR & ENTIRE STAFF has been great this series 2, 3, & 2 runs over 3 games. Can’t ask for any better!! Hope Festa keeps them in game today.

Lefty bats need to come alive today!!!

[thelanges5]

2 hours ago, CRF said:

SWR was just fine. He gave us everything we needed him to. The problem is...SCORING RUNS! When we get guys on, they die there. No clutch hitting at all. The times we get two, or even three, runners on, with no outs...and then don't score...has to be right up there with the worst teams in MLB. That has to stop. Yesterday was a winnable game, and we blew it. We HAVE to win today! Can't let Cleve get out of here with a split. 

MLB Rankings RISP:

KCR #1

CLE #4

MIN #21

[mikelink45]

23 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

IMO something different should be done about these long overdone ceremonies which is a big disadvantage to the home SP. I wonder how many games we've lost because of them? In spite of that Sims pitched a great game, CLE was a different team with that lead-off HR. Jeffers miscue didn't help where we needed to complete every opportunity we had. Once CLE pitching machine started it was hard to stop. It was also tough w/o Correa & Lewis in the line-up. Big mistake sending Varland down again we desperately need him up here to take up some slack. 

Maybe the easiest solution would be for the teams to expect at least a 30 minute delay and start their warmups accordingly.  This happens once a year.  It is no big deal.

[jmlease1]

Tough loss. SWR pitched quite well, normally a couple of solo shots aren't going to hurt you much. He did a nice job of being around the zone and it got him some extra strikes. 

Offense just wasn't going. The Jeffers out at 3B really hurt, but it was a difficult read and Kwan is an excellent defender and made the play with a perfect throw. Too bad, because bases loaded and zero outs is pretty different than first & second and 1 out. A little more offense and we would have stolen that one. Shame to waste such a good pitching performance.

Nice job by Winder as well in finishing the game off and letting the rest of the bullpen get the day off. Sure would be nice if he can be a 2 inning guy on a consistent basis; I feel good about the bullpen even with the injuries, but having a guy who can give 2 good innings when a starter only goes 4-5 is sort of what's been missing here. Fewer games where you need 4 relievers to finish it out helps keep everyone fresh and ensures you have one of your best arms available

[Doctor Gast]

2 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

Maybe the easiest solution would be for the teams to expect at least a 30 minute delay and start their warmups accordingly.  This happens once a year.  It is no big deal.

It's hard for me to see the Twins warming up while there's a ceremony honoring a Twins honoree going on. It seems disrespectful. It shouldn't be a big deal but a loss is a loss & this could be a big one.

[Squirrel]

4 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

It's hard for me to see the Twins warming up while there's a ceremony honoring a Twins honoree going on. It seems disrespectful. It shouldn't be a big deal but a loss is a loss & this could be a big one.

There was warming up going on in the outfield while this was happening. I don’t think that’s rude. I think everyone on that field that was part of the ceremony understands and expects this because they were all there once upon a time

[Whitey333]

SWR pitched great.  Keep it up!!  Hopefully the Twins bats will come alive Sunday.  Blaming in part the long winded pregame ceremony for any home team deficiencies is just another in a very long line of excuses to explain away the teams problems at times.  No way.  It was a well pitched game and the Twins only managed 4 hits. 

Kris Atterberry on radio is terrible.  He never shuts up and digressing to unrelated game topics way too much.  He's very hard to follow as he attempts to do play by play.  God I miss Provus on radio.  But I love Molitor and Perkins and Gadden as well.  They do an excellent job.

[David Maro]

Hitters looked like they had dinner dates and were running late.Why would you hitter after hitter swing at first pitch wasting an at bat.

On the Jeffers out play at 3rd base where was the 3rd base coach,he has a view of the flight of the ball.

On the good side of the game the infield played one of the best games all season.

[LambchoP]

SWR has been a good send and underrated all year. I thought he was burning out a bit after his last two starts, but he looked great yesterday even hitting 96mph. I am worried about our bullpen. Especially with Stewart and probably Topa being done for the year. Winder has looked better recently, but other than Duran, Jax, Alcala and maybe Sands, I wouldn't trust any of those guys in close games. Our depth is going to be seriously tested the rest of the way. Varland to the pen could help. Canterino would be good too, but haven't seen any updates all year. Zebby has been hit hard in AAA, calling him up too early could hurt his development, but who do we turn to then? Rich Hill?

[William K Johnson]

So we got nothing on the Polanco trade.

[John Kelsey]

3 minutes ago, William K Johnson said:

So we got nothing on the Polanco trade.

Neither did Seattle.