The baseball gods tried to stop the Twins from winning in Cleveland, but it wasn’t to be.
It started out great with Eddie Rosario hitting a two-run homer in the first, but then things went bad.
- Bartolo Colon got sick and left the game after the first inning.
- Paul Molitor had to use nine relievers.
- Andrew Miller struck out the side in the top of the seventh.
- Indians went up 6-4 on Edwin Encarnacion’s homer in the bottom of the seventh.
There was no way the Twins were supposed to win on the road against the hottest team in baseball history – the Indians had won 29 of 31 games entering play Tuesday.
But then a late rally put Brian Dozier at the plate with two outs in the eighth inning and he delivered a clutch three-run over the wall in right-center field to put the Twins on top 7-6.
The @Twins needed a big hit. @BrianDozier delivered. pic.twitter.com/B99W4sVfwB
— MLB (@MLB) September 27, 2017
Magic.#WereGonna WIN! #TwinsWin pic.twitter.com/L83e2v6Fsf
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) September 27, 2017
In the bottom of the eighth, Byron Buxton saved the day with one of his best catches of the season, a diving, tumbling grab to robbing Jason Kipnis of a would-be double or triple to start the inning.
https://twitter.com/statcast/status/912872001689309186
Buxton then padded the Twins’ lead with a two-out RBI single in the ninth and Matt Belisle pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for the save and the 8-6 Twins win.
Note: Cleveland hadn’t allowed more than five runs in any of their previous 31 games.
Minnesota’s is now one win or one Angels loss away from clinching the second Wild Card in the American League playoff race. The Angels were leading the White Sox 9-3 in the bottom of the eighth inning at the time of this story being published.
