Twins

Twins Outlast Indians in Final Pre-Deadline Duel

Mandatory Credit: Jordan Johnson-USA TODAY Sports

You may have noticed, but Mitch Garver has really been stinging the ball lately. That continued on Monday night, as the catcher picked up his second hit of the night and first double in the bottom of the ninth, driving home pinch-runner Ehire Adrianza to give the Twins a 5-4 win over the Cleveland Indians at Target Field.

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The double, Garver’s 12th of the season, came off former Twins reliever Neil Ramirez, and pushed his season batting line to .269/.347/.413. And while he’s still ceding some time behind the plate to defensive-minded backup Bobby Wilson, Garver seems to have come into his own offensively as he’s gotten more run behind the dish as well.

The month of July has been especially kind to Garver, who came into Monday’s action hitting .302/.403/.566 in 17 games over the month with still one more chance to pad those stats before the calendar flips to the season’s penultimate month.

Garver wasn’t much for talking about himself after the game, however, focusing on the team victory, as well as the players dealt earlier in the day from a roster that will look drastically different over the season’s final two months from its first four.

“That was a big win for us as a group, as a group of brothers,” Garver said. “We lost some key guys to our team this year, and to come back and kind of put that one away and finish that game like is pretty exciting for us.

“In the clubhouse, you know, we were kind of quiet throughout the day,” he continued. “Losing those guys was tough. To bounce back, shoot — we’ve got 10 more games against these guys, and play more games in our division. We’re just going to keep fighting. Whatever happens within the squad, it is what it is, but we’re going to keep fighting as a group.”

Ervin Santana got the start for the Twins opposite of Cleveland righty Shane Bieber, and in doing so made his Target Field debut. He missed the first half of the season after surgery to the middle finger on his throwing hand, and is still seeking to regain the lost velocity he has experienced during his rehab and return.

He hit 91 mph on a few occasions Monday night, but was still in the 89-90 range for much of the night. Even still, he did a fine job to push through 5 and 1/3 innings without his best stuff. Sixty of his 88 pitches were strikes, and he only had four swinging strikes — and one strikeout total — as he spent most of the night giving up fly ball after fly ball.

In all, the Indians hit 12 fly balls and just three grounders against Santana, with the bulk of the damage coming on a pair of Jose Ramirez solo homers in the first two innings as well as an RBI double from Yonder Alonso in the sixth.

Santana also gave up a home run to Yan Gomes in the fifth inning.

The 35-year-old righty said even despite the less-than-ideal results, he felt better than last time out — his season debut in Toronto.

“I was working at a better tempo today and everything was going very good,” he said. “It was better than the last time in Toronto, so I feel better and happy about today.”

It truly was a testament to how well Santana battled that he was able to keep the damage down — even with three long balls allowed.

“They’re always an aggressive team,” Santana said. They’re one of the hottest teams in baseball right now and we had a good battle and it was good to get the win.”

Santana said the team has to forget about what has happened and move on — and that only they can control the future.

“For me and for the club, every first game of the series is very important for us,” he said. “We took it today and we don’t have control over what’s already happened. So we just have to keep playing about baseball and worrying about what we have here.”

“I thought it was similar,” manager Paul Molitor said in his assessment of Santana’s second start compared to his first. “I thought the changeup was good for the most part. He got some guys getting underneath just because he had such good arm action on it.

“The mistakes were Ramirez got him a couple of times, and both times I think on full counts, one was a fastball and one was a changeup, and then the breaking ball to Gomes obviously got too much of the plate. But I liked the pace. He was getting it, and getting ready and throwing. I thought he had a pretty good rhythm, and the only thing that really interrupted it was the home runs.”

The bullpen was terrific in relief of Santana, as Gabriel Moya, Trevor Hildenberger, Taylor Rogers, Matt Magill and Fernando Rodney combined for 3 and 2/3 innings of scoreless relief with four strikeouts the rest of the way.

It wasn’t without bumps — they allowed three walks and three hits, and the Fernando Rodney Experience was in full force — but it ultimately was a good chance for the bullpen to show what it might look like in terms of roles with the departures of Duke and Ryan Pressly over the past three days.

“We’ve got a different look out there right now,” Molitor said during his postgame availability. “We’re going to have to change at least giving guys a little different opportunity of when they pitch and maybe even how long they pitch.

“He’s done a nice job,” Molitor said of Magill specifically, as the righty has a 3.72 ERA and 1.16 WHIP through 38.2 innings as a pleasant surprise since his call-up from Rochester. “He filled in that length role admirably, and now he gets a chance to get some more significant outs late in the game.”

Briefly

Miguel Sano was picked off second base in the second inning, and the Twins opted not to challenge the play despite the fact that it looked like got back into the bag just before Francisco Lindor’s tag.

The telecast surmised that it might have been due to technical difficulties with the replay equipment — which were at play all evening, apparently — but Molitor said that wasn’t exactly the case.

“We had it,” Molitor said, indicating that team got a look just before the system malfunctioned. “Our looks on it weren’t clear at that stage of the game to go on and try to risk when we didn’t think our odds were particularly good. Our system shut down shortly thereafter, and it was something that was intermittently it popped down, but it wasn’t reliable the rest of the game. But we had it for that one.”

Molitor also added that the team would add a pitcher prior to Tuesday’s game — to fill the spot vacated by the trade of Zach Duke — but did not mention any specifics. Early indications are that left-hander Adalberto Mejia will take over Lance Lynn’s rotation spot.


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