CLEVELAND, Ohio — The Indians were good at the beginning and better at the end of Saturday’s game at Progressive Field.
Cesar Hernandez made sure of that as he hit a two-run, walk-off homer in the 10th inning to give the Indians a 5-3 win over the Twins. Hernandez homered off Alex Colome’s second pitch of the inning as the Indians bounced back following a 10-0 loss on Friday.
It was the Indians’ third walk-off win of the season. They are 4-1 in extra innings this year. The Twins are 0-8.
The Indians scored three runs in the first two innings and two in the 10th. Between the second and the 10th there was radio silence. The win went to James Karinchak (2-0), who retired four straight. Colome (2-4) took the loss, his second walk-off loss to the Indians this year. Jordan Luplow beat him with a homer in the 10th on April 26.
Hernandez, with Austin Hedges, the ghost runner at second base, took Colome’s first pitch for a ball. He pounced on the second.
“It was some type of cutter,” said Hernandez, following the first walk-off homer of his career. “It was in and I was trying to be aggressive and pull the ball to move the runner. That was was my focus.”
The Indians missed a chance to win it in the ninth against Hansel Robles when they loaded the bases. Josh Naylor drew a one-out walk. Harold Ramirez doubled him to third. Robles struck out Jake Bauers and pitched around Amed Rosario to load the bases and bring up Austin Hedges. He worked the count full but popped out.
Naylor hesitated on Ramirez’s double because he thought it might get caught. If he’d been running at the crack of the bat, he may have scored the winning run.
“Sometimes you get rewarded for doing the wrong thing,” said manager Terry Francona. “If he had been running right way he might have scored, but I don’t know if that necessarily was the right thing. I know I wasn’t in the dugout yelling run. I couldn’t tell.”
The win was tempered by an injury to DH Franmil Reyes, who left in the sixth inning after fouling off a pitch. The Indians said he’d suffered an strained left abdominal muscle and would have further details on the injury Sunday.
Francona said Reyes would get an MRI Sunday morning. He added, “Common sense tells you he’s going to miss some time.”
The Indians took an early 3-0 lead, but Shane Bieber couldn’t hold it.
Reyes hit a two-run homer in the first off Kenta Maeda. Reyes has hit 11 homers this season, three coming off Maeda, including two against on April 27 at Progressive Field. Maeda retired the first two batters in the inning, but made the mistake of hitting Jose Ramirez to bring Reyes to the plate.
The Indians made it 3-0 on an RBI single by Hedges in the second. Amed Rosario doubled past third base with two out and scored on Hedges’ single to the gap in right center.
Bieber, after two scoreless innings, gave up a run in the third on Josh Donaldson’s sacrifice fly. Rob Refsnyder opened the inning with a single and took second on a ground out. Luis Arraez moved him to third on a single to center and Donaldson followed with a fly ball to right.
Miguel Sano made it a 3-2 game with a leadoff homer in the fourth. It extended his hitting streak at Progressive Field to nine games. The streak includes four homers.
Bieber held the 3-2 lead through the fifth, but allowed a leadoff triple to Max Kepler in the sixth. Center fielder Harold Ramirez tracked the ball to the wall and just missed making a leaping catch.
Bieber struck out Sano and had Alex Kirilloff down in the count 1-2, but the rookie lined a game-tying single into right field. Nick Sandlin relieved and loaded the bases on a hit batsman and a two-out walk. He ended the inning by striking out Andrelton Simmons on a 3-2 slider that crossed the plate at 79 mph.
“There were a lot of things in that game,” said Francona. “You can go all the way back to Sandlin’s inning. He was having trouble finding the plate, but he competed and got out of it. If not, we may have been home an hour ago.”
The Indians, after the second, were held hitless until Harold Ramirez’s leadoff single in the seventh. It proved to be a dead end as Jake Bauers flied out to left and Amed Rosario bounced into a double play.
Bieber allowed three runs on eight hits in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out six and walked one in his third no decision of the season. Bieber’s streak of 23 consecutive starts with at least seven strikeouts came to an end. The streak started on Sept. 20, 2019.
In his last two starts, Bieber hasn’t looked like himself. He’s allowed six runs on 13 hits in 10 innings. Asked if teams, especially in the AL Central, have adjusted to his stuff, he said, “Teams are kind of laying off the off-speed stuff down, which has been my strength the last two years. But right now, I think it’s a little bit more of a me thing. . .I feel like I’m getting better and better.”
Maeda allowed three runs on three hits in five innings. He struck out six and walked one.
Next: RHP Zach Plesac (4-3, 3.93) starts the series finale. The Twins will start LHP J.A. Happ (2-2, 5.35) on Sunday at 1:10 p.m. Ball Sports Great Lakes, WTAM and WMMS will carry the game.
A variety of Cleveland Indians face masks available online today. (Fanatics.com)
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