Garver homers twice as Twins respond to adversity with big win over Indians
Just hours after finding out their most reliable starting pitcher had been suspended for the remainder of the season, the Twins rallied in front of a sold out crowd to beat the Indians 5-3 Saturday night at Target Field.
Mitch Garver slugged a solo homer in the first inning and then smashed a tie-breaking three-run homer in the bottom of the eighth to turn a 2-2 game into a 5-2 Twins lead.
The come-from-behind win came just hours after Michael Pineda was suspended by Major League Baseball for 60 games after testing positive for a diuretic listed among the league's banned substances.
Pineda, who apologized, has been Minnesota's most reliable starting pitcher since the All-Star break, and his suspension will keep him out the rest of the regular season, all of the postseason, and for 39 games to start the 2020 season.
It was reported that the Twins held a team meeting shortly after news of Pineda's suspension broke.
#MNTwins holding a team meeting right now. Haven’t been many of those this season.
— DanHayesMLB (@DanHayesMLB) September 7, 2019
Jake Odorizzi responded by giving the Twins a solid start, striking out 10 batters before leaving with one out in the sixth inning. He wound up being charged with two earned runs after Cleveland tied the game 1-1 on a wild pitch by Tyler Duffey, and then took a 2-1 lead on an RBI double by Yasiel Puig.
Jonathan Schoop tied the game 2-2 in the eighth with an RBI triple, which was followed by Garver's 28th homer of the season.
Zack Littell pitched a clean seventh inning, Sergio Romo gave up one run in the eighth and Taylor Rogers worked a 1-2-3 ninth for his 25th save of the season.
Minnesota's now leads Cleveland by 6.5 games in the AL Central with 20 games to go.
Up next: Twins vs. Indians, 1:10 p.m. Sunday.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.