Long ball bites Civale, Cleveland Indians drop series opener to Twins

Aaron Civale and the Cleveland Indians fell victim to the long-ball in a series-opening loss to the Minnesota Twins at Progressive Field.

The Cleveland Indians dropped the first game of a pivotal three-game series with the first-place Minnesota Twins Monday losing by a final score of 3-2.

The Indians struck first blood as for the second straight game, Cesar Hernandez delivered a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first as Cleveland jumped on Kenta Maeda for an early 1-0 lead.

Minnesota evened things up in the top of the fourth off of Indians starter Aaron Civale as Nelson Cruz slugged a solo-shot for his 11th home run of the year and tied the game at one.

In the top of the sixth, Minnesota pulled ahead as Miguel Sano smacked Civale’s two-run home run to give the Twins a 3-1 lead.

The sixth would be Civale’s inning as despite the two home runs still produced a quality start and struck out eight Twins.

With Maeda out of the game, the Indians cut the lead to one in the bottom of the seventh as Carlos Santana delivered a two-out RBI single off of Trevor May to make it a 3-2 ballgame.

One-run would be all Cleveland’s offense would score off the Twins bullpen as Sergio Romo tossed a scoreless eighth and Taylor Rogers closed out the Indians in the ninth to lock down the Minnesota victory.

With the loss, the Indians dropped to 17-12 on the season and now trail Minnesota by two and a half games in the AL Central.

Meanwhile, the Twins improved to 18-9 on the year and have won four of their first five matchups with Cleveland this season.

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On Deck: The Indians will seek to even the series Tuesday by sending their ace Shane Bieber to the mound. Bieber is the clear front-runner for the AL Cy Young Award as he has posted a tremendous 5-0 record with an MLB best ERA of just 1.11 and league-high 65 strikeouts. He’ll match up with Twins veteran Rich Hill who is making just his third start of the 2020 season after missing three weeks with shoulder fatigue. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. EST from Progressive Field.