Indians Fall to Last Place in 6-4 Loss to Twins

A late-inning comeback wasn’t enough to overcome a rough outing from Zach McAllister Wednesday night as the Twins beat the Tribe, 6-4, and the Cleveland Indians fell to sole possession of last place in the AL Central.

Troy Taormina-US PRESSWIRE

The game started off well enough for the Indians. McAllister opened the game with a scoreless inning and Asdrubal Cabrera hit a solo home run off Liam Hendriks in the bottom of the first to give Cleveland a 1-0 lead. Minnesota erased the deficit with RBI singles from Joe Mauer and Josh Willingham in the third, but Jason Kipnis‘ RBI single in the bottom of the inning knotted the score up at 2-2.

Minnesota ran up the score in the middle innings. After issuing a one-out walk to Mauer in the top of the fifth, McAllister served up a two-run homer to Willingham before getting pulled from the game. Chris Seddon entered in relief and promptly loaded the bases before allowing Justin Morneau to score on Chris Herrmann‘s fielder’s choice. Another RBI single from Willingham in the sixth made it 6-2 Twins.

Meanwhile, the Indians’ bats went on hiatus until the eighth inning. Vinny Rottino led off the bottom of the eighth with a double off Alex Burnett. Shin-Soo Choo struck out before Kipnis delivered with another RBI single; Michael Brantley got another run-scoring hit before the inning was out. But the rally was not enough as the Twins held on for a 6-4 win.

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Jim Cowsert-US PRESSWIRE

The Good: Jason Kipnis went 2-for-4 with a pair of RBI hits, and Asdrubal Cabrera hit a home run. Also, Travis Hafner made his return to the lineup, which didn’t seem like a sure thing a month ago.

The Bad: Zach McAllister got rocked for four runs (all earned) on eight hits in 4.1 innings, walking two Twins against three strikeouts. His weakness of not being able to contain rallies was once again his undoing.

Also, Asdrubal Cabrera left the game in the eighth inning with wrist soreness. That this issue continues to plague him is not a good sign.

The “Huh?”: Lonnie Chisenhall entered Wednesday with a .798 OPS, behind only Travis Hafner and Shin-Soo Choo for tops on the team. So why was he hitting eighth in the lineup?

Interesting Tidbit: The Indians are now in sole possession of last place in the AL Central for the first time since September 2010—nearly two years ago.