Shelley Duncan sparks as the Cleveland Indians defeat Minnesota Twins 8-2 – MLB Update
Shelley Duncan drove in three runs on Saturday, September 24 to help the Cleveland Indians beat the Minnesota Twins 8-2 at Progressive Field in the first game of the double-header.
It was the 17th loss for the Twins in the last 19 games that they have played.
Equally importantly, as the Minnesota Twins’ performance plummets, the Indians are at their best. Duncan now has 17 RBIs and six homers in this month alone. This has obviously given the player some renewed confidence and joy.
"Getting more playing time has helped," Duncan said. "Now, if I don't get a hit I can say, 'Well, there's always tomorrow.' Before, it was there's always maybe next week. I've always believed I can play well up here. I'm 31 going on 32, but I want to play
as long as I can."
The most prohibitively expensive reliever for the Twins was Francisco Liriano who gave up five runs. "One minute everything was fine," Liriano said. "I think I was rushing and trying to overthrow. The ball was moving everywhere. It was one of those days."
Also, for the Cleveland Indians, David Huff had his career-high seven strike-outs, in just over five innings.
Huff gave up two runs and eight hits compared to Brian Duensing of the Twins who allowed two runs in his five innings with a 5.23 ERA. Liriano, undeniably, was extremely costly for the Twins with the five runs he gave up compared to Zach Putnam of the Indians
who only gave up a run and Frank Hermann, the Indians’ closer, who did not allow any runs in the last two innings he pitched.
Twins had an aggressive start as Shelley Duncan scored a two-run double in the first inning to give his team a 2-0 lead while Huff kept pitching strong innings. Luke Hughes scored the first run for the Twins in the fourth inning.
Trevor Plouffe levelled the score in the sixth inning but that did not last long. Indians’ hitters unleashed a six-run sixth inning against Liriano. Duncan had a sacrifice fly to score the tiebreaking run, LaPorta had a one run double, Jack Hannahan singled
to centre, Kosuke Fukudome singled to right and Jason Kipnis scored a run to make it 8-2 by the time the sixth inning ended.
Frank Herrmann of the Cleveland Indians tossed effective pitches to not allow any space to the Twins’ hitters. Allowing no run in 8th and 9th inning, he concluded the game with an 8-2 victory for the Indians. Cleveland is playing some
very good baseball and they managed to dominate the Twins in the first game of the double-header with this impressive win.
Tags: