THEFAN -Cleveland – For months, the AL Central was the butt of jokes. The Minnesota Twins may get the last laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jorge Polanco hit a sacrifice fly and Donovan Solano added a three-run triple in Minnesota\u2019s five-run eighth inning as the Twins pushed their lead to seven games over second-place Cleveland with an 8-3 win over the Guardians on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Polanco hit a shot deep enough to right off Trevor Stephan (6-6) to score pinch-runner Joey Gallo and break a 3-3 tie. Later in the inning, Solano\u2019s liner to center skipped past outfielder Myles Straw and rolled to the wall, clearing the bases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By winning the first two games of the critical three-game series, Minnesota, which has been atop the division since mid-July, moved seven games above .500 for the first time in 2023.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More importantly, they probably put away the defending division champion Guardians with just 23 games left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, the Twins, who improved 4-1 on this road trip and are playing their best ball this season, aren\u2019t taking anything for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the beginning of September,\u201d said manager Rocco Baldelli. \u201cWe play six-month seasons and we have close to a month left. Nothing changes for us right now. We\u2019ve just got to keep playing good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Minnesota\u2019s Christian V\u00e1zquez, who hit a game-tying homer in the sixth off Guardians reliever Matt Moore, led off the eighth with a single and Willi Castro doubled down the left-field line. Gallo came on for V\u00e1zquez and scored easily on Polanco\u2019s fly ahead of Will Brennan\u2019s throw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stephan\u2019s wild pitch made it 5-3, and the right-hander walked two and hit a batter to set up Solano\u2019s shot \u2014 a potential knockout blow for Cleveland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the ball got by Straw, Solano had one thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRun,\u201d he said with laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bo Naylor hit a two-run homer for the Guardians, who were blown out 20-6 in Monday\u2019s series opener.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Manager Terry Francona understands the challenge his team is facing. He\u2019s also confident the Guardians won\u2019t surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been accused of being a math major,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to win and the best way to is to win tomorrow. We certainly didn\u2019t put our best foot forward the last two nights, and I don\u2019t think you can run from what we haven\u2019t done. But until it\u2019s time they make you go home, we\u2019ll keep playing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Griffin Jax (6-8) struck out two in one inning after coming on for starter Sonny Gray, who gave up three runs and six hits in six innings. Caleb Thielbar worked the eighth and Emilio Pag\u00e1n finished up for Minnesota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With one out, V\u00e1zquez belted Moore\u2019s first pitch down the right-field line, the ball ducking into the seats just inside the foul pole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Guardians got a solid outing from rookie Tanner Bibee, who held the Twins to two runs and four hits in five innings one night after Minnesota unloaded on Lucas Giolito \u2014 nine runs, three innings \u2014 in his Cleveland debut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Afterward, Bibee expressed the team\u2019s frustration at losing ground to the Twins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGood team for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve shown them we can beat them, shown them we can compete with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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THEFAN -Cleveland – For months, the AL Central was the butt of jokes. The Minnesota Twins may get the last laugh. Jorge Polanco hit a sacrifice fly and Donovan Solano added a three-run triple in Minnesota\u2019s five-run eighth inning as the Twins pushed their lead to seven games over second-place […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":272399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=275408"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":275409,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275408\/revisions\/275409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/272399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=275408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=275408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=275408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}