CLEVELAND, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – For the second straight day the Indians and Twins went to extra innings but the outcome Sunday was reversed.
Kyle Garlick clubbed a three-run home run to dead center off reliever James Karinchak in the 10th inning to give the Twins an 8-5 win at Progressive Field, and the series victory.
“The kid’s human,” Indians manager Terry Francona said of Karinchak, who allowed an opponent to score for just the second time this season.
Twins starter J.A. Happ, who allowed four runs on eight hits, struck out 10 Indians over six innings but did not pick up his third win of the season for Minnesota thanks to a ninth inning Indians rally.
For the second straight day Cleveland jumped out in the first two innings to an early three run lead.
Jose Ramirez clubbed a double off the wall in left scoring Cesar Hernandez from first and allowing him to get to third on the throw. Eddie Rosario poked a two-out seeing eye single into left center to score Ramirez for a 2-0 advantage.
Amed Rosario extended the lead to 3-0 in the second inning with an RBI single to score Yu Chang.
Indians starter Zach Plesac cruised through the first three innings, retiring the Twins in order, but did not survive the fourth.
“The first three innings he was tremendous and then it just seemed to kind of go away in a hurry,” Francona said. “We didn’t make all the plays [behind him] and there were a couple of balls that got through but he gave up the changeup home run to Kepler and it seemed his aggressiveness in the zone kind of left him there.”
Luis Arraez and Josh Donaldson singled to lead off the inning for the Twins. Max Kepler followed with a three-run blast to right to tie the game at 3. It was Kepler’s 13th career homer at Progressive Field.
“Getting behind Kepler 2-0, I had to make a pitch and left a changeup up in the zone,” Plesac said. “That was the start of it. I kind of lost rhythm and started trying to be too fine with pitches. I just didn’t get them executed the way I needed to and before we looked up there was a crooked number on the board.”
Alex Kirilloff reached on an error by Cesar Hernandez and Mitch Garver followed with a single prompting the Indians bullpen to get busy. Rob Refsnyder followed a walk to Trevor Larnach with an RBI single to give the Twins a 4-3 lead. Yu Chang bobbled a grounder from Andrelton Simmons but recovered in time to get the second out of the inning but scored a fifth run and ended Plesac’s afternoon.
“I was still trying to attack and make good pitches but I just got to be better,” Plesac said.
Cleveland’s bullpen was spectacular Sunday in relief of Plesac to get them to extras.
Kyle Nelson, Phil Maton, Nick Wittgren, Bryan Shaw and Cal Quantrill combined for 5 1/3 innings of shutout relief. They combined to allow one hit, one walk and struck out nine.
The Indians, who collected a season-high five doubles, got one run back in the fifth.
Hernandez led off with a double that dropped just inside the right field line and Amed Rosario followed with a triple to right center to make it a 5-4 game. The rally was quickly snuffed out thanks to back-to-back strikeouts by Ramirez and Jordan Luplow. Eddie Rosario grounded out to second ending the threat.
Cleveland got one-out doubles by Amed Rosario and Harold Ramirez in the seventh and eighth innings respectively but were unable to score.
“We had some really good opportunities to add on or extend the lead early and we didn’t do it,” Francona said.
Hernandez walked and Amed Rosario singled to short to put the first two runners aboard in the ninth. Ramirez flew out to center allowing Hernadez to move to third. Luplow caught the Twins sleeping and dropped down a suicide squeeze bunt scoring Hernandez to tie the game at 5.
“That was on his own and it was actually a great play,” Francona said. “That was a great play because he had been having a tough time swinging the bat and it gave us a chance to keep playing.”
The heads up play by Luplow gave the Indians new life, albeit briefly.
“I saw the infield, the way they were set up and positioned, and they were all shifted to the left and I figured if I could get it in between the pitcher and first basemen we [had] good chance especially with Cesar running over there,” Luplow said.
In the 10th Karinchak walked Josh Donaldson with the runner on second before Garlick took him out of the yard.
Jake Bauers walked to put runners at the corners with one out in the bottom of the 10th but Rene Rivera and Hernandez struck out to end the game.
