Minnesota Twins dominate Cleveland Indians 9-3 to inch once step closer to division title
It was not Brian Duensing’s best outing since getting inserted in to the starting rotation in late July, but with the run support he got Monday night that did not matter as the Minnesota Twins beat the Cleveland
Indians 9-3.
Duensing, the starting pitcher for the Minnesota Twins, tied a career high with four walks and appeared to struggle for much of the time he was in, but only gave up six hits and three earned runs over six
innings to earn his 10th win on the season. The bullpen combined to pitch three scoreless innings once Dueinsing was pulled to preserve the win.
“That was just a whole bunch of frustration coming out there,” Duensing said. “Tonight was definitely a grind. I felt really good, but I think I was a little bit jumpy. After I got out of the sixth, the offence
was able to come out and put it away.”
He received more than enough run support from the offence in order to get the win.
Delmon Young got the scoring started in the first with a RBI double that scored Michael Cuddyer. Cleveland tied the game up in the second inning at 1-1. The Minnesota offence responded to that by scoring
three runs over the fourth and fifth inning to give Duensing a 4-1 lead.
Cleveland tried to make a move in the top half of the sixth, scoring two runs to close thee gap to 4-3. However, the Twins had other ideas in mind and scored four runs in the bottom half of the inning to
make the score 8-3. Denard Span started the scoring off with a triple that knocked in J.J. Hardy. Orlando Hudson knocked in Span to make the score 6-3. Cuddyer hit home run no. 15 on the season to make the score 8-3 after six innings.
Span knocked in Hardy in the seventh making the score 9-3 and preserving the win for Duensing.
With the win the Twins improved to 90-60 on the season and now have more than a 10 game lead on the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central.
Last season the Twins had to play an extra game to win the division; this year they could very well wrap up the division Tuesday night. Scott Baker will need to lead the Twins to a win over Fausto Carmona
and the Indians to go with a loss by the White Sox to the Oakland A’s.
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