CLEVELAND INDIANS 10, MINNESOTA TWINS 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Monday, July 19, 2010.

Batting stars: Delmon Young was 3-for-5 with a double.  Orlando Hudson was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.  Jason Kubel was 2-for-5 with a double.  Jim Thome hit a home run, his eleventh.

Pitching star:  Jeff Manship pitched two shutout innings, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Trevor Crowe was 4-for-5 with a double, two runs, and two RBIs.  Jayson Nix was 3-for-6 with a double.  Carlos Santana was 2-for-4 with a double and a walk.  Shelly Duncan was 2-for-4 with a double and two runs.  Jason Donald was 2-for-5 with two runs and two RBIs.  Michael Brantley was 2-for-5 with a walk.  Travis Hafner was 2-for-5.  Matt LaPorta was 2-for-5.  Aaron Laffey pitched five innings, giving up an unearned run on five hits and four walks and striking out two.

The game:  Hafner led off the second with a single and Jhonny Peralta walked.  With one out, Crowe doubled and Donald hit an RBI ground out, making it 2-0 Cleveland.  There were several threats, but no more runs until the fourth, when the Twins got on the board.  Kubel led off with a double, Young singled, and Danny Valencia drew a one-out walk, loading the bases.  All the Twins could manage, though, was one run on a passed ball, so they still trailed 2-1.

It cost them, as the Indians took control in the fifth.  Santana doubled and Duncan singled.  With one out, Peralta hit a sacrifice fly.  Then the roof fell in.  Singles by LaPorta and Crowe made it 4-1 and chased starter Scott Baker from the game.  Alex Burnett came in and gave up RBI singles to Donald and Brantley.  Ron Mahay came in and gave up an RBI single to Nix.  It was 7-1 and the game was effectively over.

It wasn’t literally over, though, and the Twins did get a couple of runs in the sixth.  Thome led off with a home run.  With two out, Denard Span walked and scored on Hudson’s double to make it 7-3.

That was as close as the Twins would get.  In the eighth, consecutive doubles by Duncan and Hafner made it 8-3.  In the ninth, consecutive singles by Crowe, Donald, Brantley, and Nix produced a run, and a sacrifice fly made it 10-3.  The Twins got one last run in the ninth when Michael Cuddyer doubled and scored on a Young single.

WP:  Laffey (2-3).

LP:  Scott Baker (7-9).

S:  None.

Notes:  The Twins used their standard lineup for 2010.  The only substitute used was Jason Repko, who pinch-hit for Thome in the ninth.

Valencia was batting .314.  He would finish at .311.  Young was batting .313.  He would finish at .298.

Joe Mauer was batting .297 at this point.  He would finish at .327.

Manship had an ERA of 2.45.  This was his fifth game of the season, and he would go back to AAA after it.  He would come back for a September call-up but pitch poorly, finishing at 5.28.  Jose Mijares had an ERA of 2.75.  He would finish at 3.31.

Santana appears to be the only player with a Twins connection to play for Cleveland in this game.

A couple of guys played in this game for who we would have hopes, only to see them dashed.  Delmon Young had the best year of his career, batting .298/.333/.493.  He was twenty-four, and seemed to have figured things out.  His list of similar batters by age included Carl Yastrzemski and Al Oliver.  Instead, he went backward.  The Twins traded him to Detroit in August of 2011 and he would be out of the majors before he was thirty.  Danny Valencia batted .311 as a rookie.  He would lose his starting job by 2012, be traded to Baltimore, and bounce around the majors for several more years.  He would have a couple more good years, but would never fulfill the promise he seemed to have.

On the pitching side, Jose Mijares followed a good 2009 with a fine 2010.  He would be down in 2011, become a free agent, have a decent year in 2012 with Kansas City and San Francisco, but be out of the majors after 2013.

Record:  Cleveland was 39-54, in fifth place in the AL Central, 12.5 games behind Chicago.  They would finish 69-93, in fourth place, 25 games behind Minnesota.

The Twins were 49-44, in third place in the AL Central, 2.5 games behind Chicago.  They would finish 94-68, in first place, six games ahead of Chicago.

Random Record:  The Random Twins are 12-10 (.545)