Cleveland 5, Minnesota 1
When: 1:05 PM ET, Saturday, September 28, 2013
Where: Target Field, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Temperature:
55°
Umpires:
Home -
Larry Vanover, 1B -
Greg Gibson, 2B -
Brian Gorman, 3B -
Tony Randazzo
Attendance:
30452
By SportsDirect Inc.
Indians 5, Twins 1: Carlos Santana homered and Scott Kazmir struck out 11 in six strong innings as visiting Cleveland moved into the top wild-card spot in the American League.
Michael Bourn added a two-run triple and scored for the Indians, who moved one game ahead of both the Texas Rangers and the Tampa Bay Rays with one game left in the regular season. The Indians, who have won nine straight games, can clinch home-field advantage in the wild-card playoff game with a win in Sunday’s series finale.
Kazmir (10-9) allowed one run on six hits and a pair of walks to secure wins in back-to-back starts for the first time since early May.
Cole De Vries (0-2) started for Minnesota and struck out seven of the first 12 batters he faced before yielding a two-out single to Jason Kipnis in the fourth. Santana followed and belted a 1-1 fastball out to right to put Cleveland on top.
The Twins got a run back in the bottom of the fourth but Bourn struck in the following half-inning with a two-run triple to right before scoring on Kipnis’ single. De Vries lasted five innings and was charged with five runs on six hits while striking out seven.
GAME NOTEBOOK: The Indians have won 23 more games in 2013 than in 2012 and can tie the franchise record for the largest season-to-season turnaround (1985-86) with a victory on Sunday. … Should Texas, Tampa Bay and Cleveland finish the season with identical records, the Indians would host the Rays on Monday in a one-game tiebreaker for the top wild-card spot - with the loser heading to Texas on Tuesday for a second one-game playoff. Should two teams finish tied for the second spot after Sunday, the winner of the regular-season series would host a one-game tiebreaker on Monday. … De Vries totaled five strikeouts in his first three starts.
Top Game Performances
Hitting
Cleveland |
|
Minnesota |
Michael Bourn
| Player |
Eric Fryer |
2 |
Hits |
1 |
2 |
RBI |
1 |
0 |
HR |
0 |
4 |
TB |
1 |
.500 |
Avg |
1.000 |
Team Stats Summary
Team |
Hits |
HR |
TB |
Avg |
LOB |
K |
RBI |
BB |
SB |
Errors |
Cleveland
|
7 |
1 |
12 |
.206 |
5 |
9 |
5 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
Minnesota
|
6 |
0 |
6 |
.194 |
16 |
13 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
0 |