Bailey Ober pitched six scoreless innings, and Carlos Santana hit a two-run homer as the Twins beat the Cleveland Guardians in the first game of a double header, 4-2, at Target Field for their first victory against their American League Central rival this season.
The victory pulled the Twins to within 2½ games of first-place Cleveland pending a 7:10 p.m. first pitch tonight. Right-hander Louie Varland was recalled from Class AAA St. Paul to make the start against Guardians right-hander Alex Cobb.
It was particularly mollifying after the Twins learned Friday morning they will be without Joe Ryan, their quality-starts leader with 13, for a substantial amount of time — if not the rest of the season.
An MRI revealed that Ryan has a Grade 2 strain in the teres major in his right shoulder. He took himself out of his start at Wrigley Field on Wednesday in the second inning.
“We’re ready for this series and are just going to go out there and play our baseball,” Ober said. “It’s tough when guys go down, especially with how they’ve been doing. We’re hurting for them. We’re hoping they can get as healthy as they can. We’re just going to try to go out there and play our baseball.”
Ober (12-5) allowed only two hits and two walks and struck out nine in his ninth straight quality start.
Manny Margot started the first with a double and came home on Santana’s two-out, two-run home run off Joey Cantillo (0-2), and Ryan Jeffers made it 3-0 with a solo shot in the fourth. Santana started his career in Cleveland in 2010.
Cleveland shortstop Brayan Rocchio hit a two-run home run off Jorge Alcala to make it 3-2 in the seventh inning, but Kyle Farmer scored Max Kepler with a sacrifice fly in the Twins’ half to make it 4-2.
Jhoan Duran struck out the side in the ninth for his 16th save.
The Twins started this series 0-5 against their division rival, which has been alone in first place in the Central since early April.
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