CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Cal Quantrill flirted with history Sunday.
Quantrill dazzled for seven innings and allowed just one hit while the Cleveland Guardians offense scored a pair of runs in the first inning to beat the Minnesota Twins 2-0 to take two of three in the weekend series at Progressive Field.
“It's awesome,” Quantrill said. “I thought the boys came out hot today. The first inning runs is a good change of pace for us...We needed a series, we needed a series, we needed to get back on track and I think the whole team played well today.”
Here’s our Final 9 from the ballpark Sunday afternoon.
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1. Quantrill was sensational and did not allow a hit until the seventh inning when Twins first baseman Alex Kiriloff ended Quantrill's no hit bid with a single to right field. “I was probably aware of it in the sixth,” Quantrill said of the no-hit bid. “I mean it was a tight game the whole game, so it wasn't really an opportunity to revel in it. A walk and a homer would've tied it up. So I don't think you really pitch for no hitters. You pitch to win. If they happen to not hit a ball it's great.” Quantrill walked Joey Galo after giving up the hit but caught Jose Miranda looking to end the inning, and his afternoon.
2. Quantrill’s final line: seven innings, one hit, three walks, four strikeouts and a hit batter.
3. In the top of the second, Quantrill hit Byron Buxton, who led off the inning, then walked Alex Kiriloff and Joey Gallo to load the bases with no outs but was able to get out of it thanks to Jose Miranda popping out to short and Nick Gordon hitting into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning with no damage inflicted. “I think it locked me in,” Quantrill said. “I was disappointed in how I came out in that second inning after the guys gave me runs. It's unacceptable. You cannot, cannot hit a batter [then] walk, walk after they score some runs against a really good starter. It was huge.”
4. The Guardians got off to a fast start with four of the first five hitters reaching on singles off Twins starter Joe Ryan, who suffered his first loss of the season after coming in with a 5-0 mark. “I think our base running helped us because if we don’t go first to third, those probably aren't hits,” Guardians manager Terry Francona said. “But because they're holding the runner on first, balls are going through the hole and I wish we’d have got more.” Jose Ramirez and Josh Bell both drove in runs with RBI singles to right field for a 2-0 lead. “I mean, had to be ready early,” Bell said. “Knew his arsenal, knew that the split would show up early in the count, so I was just trying to put a good swing on the ball. Thankful I had runners on there, kind of shrink the infield for me to scratch that run across.”
5. Steven Kwan, one of few consistent bright spots in the lineup, reached base for the 16th consecutive game Sunday when he led the game off with a single. Kwan also beast out an infield single on a slow roller to third in the bottom of the fifth inning.
6. The top of the fourth ended with a batter’s violation by Alex Kiriloff. Kiriloff had just fouled a ball deep down the right field line but did not get back in the batter’s box in time. Home plate umpire Scott Barry charged him with his third strike and called him out.
7. Bell and Gabriel Arias also collected two hits Sunday afternoon while many of the outs that Ryan recorded were very loud. “I thought their guy was pretty good,” Francona said. “I thought we did a pretty good job because coming in he was dominating both lefties and righties. I thought we made him work.”
8. James Karinchak worked around a one-out walk in the eighth and Emmanuel Clase picked up his league-leading 12th save of the season for Cleveland.
9. The Guardians finally won a series, ending a streak of five consecutive series losses. “Obviously we look across our clubhouse and we know that we're good,” Bell said. “We've had a tough stretch and it seems like it’s just been the bats. So when you’re playing the game the right way, when your pitchers are doing as well as they are, and you can look around the clubhouse and say, you know what, when we start hitting, we’re going to go on a tear, it's a good feeling even when you're losing games. The last couple of weeks, even though we had a tough go, it felt like we were right in every game. So hopefully we're on the better end of the games going forward.” It was their first series win since April 14-16 when they took two of three from Washington.