Guardians bullpen allows six in 8-3 loss to Twins

It was a tale of two bullpens Tuesday night on the corner of Carnegie and Ontario. One which kept the opponent off the scoreboard and another which could not stop their opponent from scoring. Unfortunately for the Cleveland Guardians, their bullpen was the latter in the 8-3 loss to the Minnesota Twins.

It was a mixed bag from Guardians starter Tanner Bibee. Bibee was able to limit the Twins to only two runs on four hits, but the five walks and high pitch count (87) led to an early exit.

Entering the 6th inning, Cleveland held a slim 3-2 lead, and it was all downhill from that point forward. Guardians left-handed reliever would take over for Bibee and would see the lead disappear on a one-out solo home run to Twins catcher Christian Vazquez. While not ideal, this was still a situation in which the Guardians could have come out on top. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

The 8th inning was when everything spiraled out of control. Trevor Stephan came on to relieve Reynaldo Lopez, and it was an absolute disaster. Stephan would allow two straight hits to start the inning, followed by a sacrifice fly to give the Twins a 4-3 lead. Two walks would follow to load the bases, and a wild pitch allowed another run to come across to increase that lead to two. Stephan would hit Carlos Correa with a pitch to reload the bases, which were promptly unloaded on a Donovan Solano three-RBI triple.

The bases-clearing triple was not entirely Stephan's fault. Guardians center fielder Myles Straw took an overaggressive route to what should have been a routine RBI single. The result? The ball nearly went all the way to the wall, allowing more than enough time for every Twins base runner to score and Solano to end up on third.

What transpired in the 8th inning appears to be the final death blow in the Guardians season. Cleveland could not afford to lose two or more games in this series, and that is exactly what happened. The Guardians now trail the Twins by seven games in the division, and unless an unlikely series of events occurs, Cleveland's season will come to an end on October 1st.