The Guardians pulled out a huge victory in the series opener in Minnesota, and it would once again be off the back of some excellent pitching. Parker Messick looked incredibly solid again, as he got through 5.1 innings, striking out 5, and giving up just 3 hits. He would only be touched for 1 run, when the Twins strung together 2 of their 3 hits off him back to back in the 2nd inning. After that, he was able to keep the Twins quiet.
In a similar fashion, Taj Bradley was able to keep the Guardians’ offense in check, giving up just 1 hit through 6 innings. The Guards were able to draw 4 walks off him and made a handful of very loud outs, but couldn’t find any outfield grass.
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After the 6th, it would become a battle of the bullpens. The Twins brought in A.J. Minter to pitch the 7th, and the Guardians came out swinging. The first 3 hitters would all swing at the first pitch they saw, and after a Travis Bazzana single, Angel Martínez would crank an absolute moonshot 445 feet into the 2nd deck in left center field, giving the Guardians a 2-1 lead.
The twins would answer back in the bottom half of the inning on an RBI single by Kaelen Culpepper, making it a 2-2 game. That would be all the scoring until the 9th.
Travis Bazzana lead off the 9th with a walk, his 4th time reaching base in the game. After David Fry popped out attempting to bunt Bazz to 2nd, it would be Martínez again coming up big lining a double down the right field line, putting runners on 2nd and 3rd with just 1 out. Angel Genao would pinch hit for Austin Hedges and draw a key walk to load the bases and bring up Mr September himself, Brayan Rocchio. On the 2nd pitch of the at bat, Yoendrys Gómez would spike a changeup that got away from Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers, allowing Bazzana to score the go ahead run on the wild pitch. Rocchio would cap off the AB by smoking a 2 run double in the right center field gap, giving the Guardians a 5-2 lead.
In the bottom half of the 9th, it would be Cade Smith on to get the save. After a pop foul out to David Fry and PH single, Cade would get a weak ground ball off the bat of Walter Jenkins to first baseman David Fry. He would step on the bag and throw a perfect seed to Rocchio, who tagged out the runner, completing the double play and sealing a 5-2 victory for the Guardians. All in all, Cade Smith needed just 9 pitches to throw a scoreless 9th for his 36th save of the season.
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The Guards look to lock up a series win tomorrow afternoon at 4:10 pm Eastern time. At the time of writing, the probable starter for the Guards is unknown, but it sounds like an opener situation leading to Joey Cantillo (9-9, 4.00 ERA) as the bulk guy out of the pen. The Twins’ probable starter is listed as Connor Prielipp (4-7, 5.25 ERA).
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