CLEVELAND — Two Twins players made their returns from the injured list and led the team to a 6-0 victory in the final game of Tuesday's doubleheader against the Guardians.
Josh Winder (3-2) — whom the Twins optioned to Class AAA St. Paul this past Thursday after recovering from his right shoulder impingement — started as the 27th man and threw six scoreless innings, giving up only four hits and one walk with one strikeout. Second baseman Jorge Polanco came back from his lower back tightness to hit a two-run homer in the third inning and go 2 for 4.
Combined with the 3-2 loss in the first game Tuesday, the Twins are 43-34 and three games ahead of 37-34 Cleveland in the American League Central standings.
Just before Polanco's homer, Luis Arraez smashed an RBI triple. The Twins added another run in the third from a challenge. The officials initially called an inning-ending double play on Polanco with the bases loaded but then overturned the out at first to grant Polanco a third RBI.
Byron Buxton added a ninth-inning home run to give him 20 this season.
Jose Miranda blasted a leadoff homer in the sixth inning to complete the scoring.
In the matinee, Cleveland rallied for two runs in the bottom of the eighth off Twins reliever Emilio Pagan, after Carlos Correa had put the Twins ahead 2-1 with a solo home run in the top of that inning.
Pagan, who gave up five earned runs in two innings in back-to-back losses to Cleveland at Target Field last week, entered in the bottom of the inning. He walked the first two batters before his wild pitch advanced both of them into scoring position. Amed Rosario hit a ground-ball single up the middle to drive in both runs, and Twins manager Rocco Baldelli pulled Pagan after his fifth blown save of the season.
Caleb Thielbar replaced him and got out of the inning, but the Twins couldn't score against Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase in the ninth.
Twins starter Devin Smeltzer struck out a career-high nine in six innings. He gave up only four hits and one run, on a first-inning RBI double for Franmil Reyes.
"Strikeouts are great. But I think I could have gone deeper if I'd had some earlier contact," Smeltzer said. "... Fans love them, front offices love them. But I'm trying to go deep in the game. If I punch a guy out on three or four pitches, that's great. But there was a lot of deep counts. ... I would like the soft contact early and go a little deeper in that game. Especially in a doubleheader."
Smeltzer, who once threw 140 pitches in a junior college game, acknowledged that with the state of today's game and the Twins' conservative approach, he's unlikely to throw 100 or more pitches often.
Guardians starter Zach Plesac also went six innings, giving up three hits and three walks with seven strikeouts but held the Twins scoreless. But once Eli Morgan entered in the seventh, Jose Miranda hit a double and, with Mark Contreras pinch running for Miranda, Gilberto Celestino tripled off the center field wall to produce the Twins' first run.
