The Cleveland Guardians snapped their season-high seven-game losing streak on Saturday.
Now the Guardians hope to string together some victories.
Cleveland will vie for a split of a four-game series when it faces the Minnesota Twins on Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis. The Guardians held on for a 2-1 win Saturday for their first victory since Aug. 2.
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt kept a straight face as a reporter asked him how good it felt to end the seven-game skid.
“Eh,” Vogt said with a shrug.
The joke did not last long. Vogt quickly broke into a smile.
“No, it feels great,” he said. “Like I’ve been saying throughout this last week, it is what it is. Everybody goes through these struggles. We have go to one day at a time, and we were able to pull out a win (Saturday). It feels good.
“Obviously, winning always feels better than losing. I think especially just given the last seven games with how they’ve gone, and with the two doubleheaders (during the losing streak), it was a much, much needed win.”
The victory increased the Guardians’ lead back to 2 1/2 games over the second-place Twins in the American League Central. Minnesota won the first two games of the series during a doubleheader Friday.
Twins right-hander David Festa (2-2, 5.55 ERA) is scheduled to make the fifth start of his rookie campaign on Sunday. The 24-year-old Seton Hall product is aiming for back-to-back victories after pitching five scoreless innings in a 3-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Monday.
Festa yet to face the Guardians in his career.
Cleveland is set to counter with right-hander Tanner Bibee (9-4, 3.48 ERA), who will make his 23rd start of the season. Bibee was scratched from his last scheduled start because of shoulder soreness but has been cleared to rejoin the rotation in the series finale.
Bibee, 25, has 132 strikeouts in 121 1/3 innings this season. He earned the victory in his most recent outing July 29 against the Detroit Tigers, whom he limited to two runs on seven hits in six innings as Cleveland won 8-4.
In five career starts against Minnesota, Bibee is 1-0 with a 2.96 ERA.
Guardians outfielder Steven Kwan will try to stay hot after leading off Saturday’s game with a home run. He hit the second pitch he saw into the right-field bleachers.
“I thought the leadoff homer was huge,” Vogt said. “It electrified the dugout. It got everybody into the game. When you go up 1-0 like that, first batter of the game, it’s huge — especially on the road. It was a much, much needed hit and run for us.”
Festa could take on a more important role in the starting rotation in the coming weeks for the Twins, who learned in recent days that right-hander Joe Ryan will be sidelined with a shoulder strain for “weeks to months,” according to manager Rocco Baldelli.
Ryan said he did not expect the injury to be so severe.
“I’m still kind of in shock by the news,” he said. “The biggest frustration has to be feeling as good as I do right now everywhere else in relation to past seasons. I feel the freshest I’ve been mentally, physically, everything feels good. I think that’s the hardest part to deal with.”
–Field Level Media