Pablo López raced off the mound after a ball that had deflected off of his foot. After he got to it, he picked it up and shoveled it to first baseman Kody Clemens, the throw just beating the runner, Angel Martínez.
López dove to the ground as he tossed the ball, flopping face-first into the grass. He laid down for a brief second before pushing himself back up, all smiles, and giving a thumbs up as he walked back to the mound.
He may have gotten the out, but the third-inning play ended up leading to an early departure for the pitcher, who was in his third start back since suffering a teres major strain that kept him out for three months.
López departed after four innings and just 61 pitches in the Twins’ 6-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Friday night at Target Field, getting five more outs after the play before leaving with what the Twins called right forearm tightness as a result of the dive.
The starter gave up two runs in his abbreviated outing, both coming in the first inning as he pitched through heavy rain.
For much of the day, those were the only two runs on the board as the Twins (66-87) were shut down by Cleveland (82-71) rookie starter Parker Messick for the first five innings of his start. They finally broke through in the sixth, using hits from Austin Martin, Luke Keaschall and Royce Lewis to produce a pair of runs.
The score remained that way until the eighth when Guardians star José Ramírez sparked a two-out rally with a double. The Twins then intentionally walked Kyle Manzardo to face Bo Naylor, who, after Ramírez and Manzardo stole third and second base respectively, brought them both home. Cleveland tacked on another pair of runs off reliever Michael Tonkin in the ninth.
The late offense lifted the hottest team in baseball to its eighth-straight victory. The Guardians have now won 13 of their past 14 games and with another Detroit loss on Friday, they moved 2 1/2 games behind first place in a division race that at one point seemed out of reach.
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