*Photo from Sportsnaut*
Divisional games between rivals are always exciting and can tend to have electric endings. Myles Straw singled in a run, Andres Gimenez hit the walk off home run, and the Cleveland Guardians defeated the Minnesota Twins with a 5-3 victory on Thursday afternoon in Cleveland.
After defeating the Twins on Wednesday night with a walk off home run by Josh Naylor, the Guardians beat the Twins in walk off fashion yet again on Thursday, picking up their 3rd win of a 5-game series, winning their second straight, although it's just their 4th in 10 games.
Straw said of winning the series that the team was "Glad to take three out of five from those guys, and I don't think we played that series as good as we could. But to sneak three out of there is huge. To get that one game up from where we were and just try to come back tomorrow night and play some good games and try to sneak up into first place."
The Guardians jumped out to an early lead. In the second inning, Steven Kwan drew a walk with the bases load, forcing Richie Palacios home to put the Guardians ahead 1-0. In the 3rd inning, the Twins opened a two run lead. Jose Miranda doubled into the right-center field gap, scoring 3 runs and putting the Twins ahead by a 3-1 score.
It stayed a 3-1 score until the 8th inning. There, Straw hit an infield single to shortstop, scoring Franmil Reyes to make it 3-2. But an error on the play led to Gimenez scoring, tying the game at a 3-3 score. In the 9th inning, with Jose Ramirez on base, Gimenez hit the walk off two run home run to center field, giving the Guardians a dramatic 5-3 win.
Gimenez said of two walk off wins in a row that "We’re gonna go up and down and we just have to be as a group and putting great at-bats together. Hopefully things are gonna change, but we’re getting the wins. That’s all that matters."
Getting the start for the Guardians was Shane Bieber, who got hit with a no decision. Bieber allowed 3 runs on 5 hits, striking out 5 hitters over 6 innings pitched. After Bieber departed, Trevor Stephan, Bryan Shaw, and Emmanuel Clase pitched shutout innings, with Clase being credited with the win.
For the Twins, starting on the mound was Chris Archer, who also got a no decision. Archer allowed one run on one hit and 6 walks over 4 innings pitched. Jovani Moran came on and pitched 1 2/3 innings in relief, with Tyler Duffey and Tyler Thornburg also pitching 1 2/3 innings, with Thornburg getting the loss.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said that "We had a chance, not just a chance to win. We should have won every one of these games. But ‘should have’ doesn't really matter here, and we have to go out there and finish games out with good baseball in the last couple of innings."
Up next, the Guardians open a series on Friday night against the New York Yankees, with Aaron Civale taking the mound. The Twins host the Baltimore Orioles on Friday, with Joe Ryan getting the start.
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