Kody Clemens delivered three hits, including two doubles, and crossed the plate twice to propel the visiting Minnesota Twins to a 5-4 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday.
Josh Bell and Austin Martin each contributed two hits and an RBI, while Brooks Lee went 2-for-3 with a run and an RBI.
Kendry Rojas (1-0) earned his first major league win by allowing five hits, one run, three walks, and five strikeouts over 3 1/3 innings of relief. Yoendrys Gomez worked a clean ninth inning to notch his second save.
For Cleveland, Brayan Rocchio went 4-for-4 with a double and two runs, and Chase DeLauter finished 2-for-5 with two RBIs. The Guardians fell back to .500 but remain atop the AL Central.
The Twins broke the game open in the fifth inning, sending nine batters to the plate and scoring four runs on six hits to take a 5-1 lead. Clemens started the rally with a double to right-center and scored on Lee’s single. After Lee stole second, Royce Lewis lined an RBI double to left. Byron Buxton reached on an infield single, and with two outs and an 0-2 count, Bell drove in Lewis with a single. Martin then added an RBI single up the middle to plate Buxton for the four-run cushion.
Minnesota grabbed a 1-0 lead in the third when Clemens doubled to left, advanced to third on Lee’s single, and scored on a wild pitch by Gavin Williams. The Guardians tied the game in the bottom of the third when Rocchio singled, moved to second on DeLauter’s hit to center, and scored on Jose Ramirez’s RBI single up the middle.
Cleveland chipped away later. In the fifth, Angel Martinez’s two-out RBI single cut the deficit to 5-2. An inning later, DeLauter’s liner to center scored Rocchio to make it 5-3. In the eighth, David Fry and Rocchio singled to open the frame, advanced on Steven Kwan’s sacrifice bunt, and Fry scored on DeLauter’s groundout to pull within 5-4.
Guardians starter Gavin Williams (5-2) surrendered 10 hits and five runs over six innings, striking out six. Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt was absent from the game due to illness.
