Twins fall to Guardians 2-1 as Simeon Woods Richardson's strong start goes to waste

MINNEAPOLIS — Simeon Woods Richardson pitched a career-high seven innings on Saturday night, never faced more than four Guardians hitters in any of them, and never threw a pitch with a runner on second or third base.

For that dominating performance, the rookie right-hander was … charged with a loss.

Steven Kwan smacked Woods Richardson’s second pitch of the night into the seats in right center, No. 9 hitter Bo Naylor did the same with the first pitch of the sixth inning, and those two pitches beat the Minnesota Twins rookie in a 2-1 loss to first-place Cleveland at Target Field.

The disappointing defeat, which took only 1 hour, 58 minutes before a noisy crowd announced at 30,314, dropped the Twins 2 1/2 games behind the Guardians in the AL Central, and enabled the Kansas City Royals, who arrive here for three games starting on Monday, to creep within a game of them in the wild-card race.

All because the Guardians have made it their specialty this season to prevent the Twins from extending innings with clutch hits.

Cleveland starter Gavin Williams, who entered the game with an ERA of 4.91, more than a run worse than Woods Richardson’s, also gave up only four hits, but none of them left the playing field. And on the occasions when the Twins threatened to score, the right-hander snuffed the Twins, holding them to 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position.

That marked the fourth time in eight meetings between the teams this season that the Twins have gone hitless with runners in scoring position; their cumulative total in those games is 6 for 60, a .100 batting average.

Two of them on Saturday at least were useful outs for the Twins — back-to-back groundouts after Willi Castro’s leadoff double in the sixth inning, the latter by Matt Wallner bringing Castro home with Minnesota’s lone run.

But when the Twins put their first two runners on base in the third inning — Ryan Jeffers led off with a single and Austin Martin reached on first baseman Josh Naylor’s throwing error — bad luck ruined that threat. Castro lifted a low line drive into left field that dropped for what looked like a hit. But Jeffers had to stop halfway to third to make sure Kwan didn’t make a running catch. Instead, Kwan fielded it on a bounce, and his throw beat Jeffers to third base for a forceout. Two more ground-balls ended the inning without a run, and the Twins never again had two runners on base at once.

All of which wasted a memorable performance by Woods Richardson, whose importance only grows over the season’s final seven weeks with Joe Ryan on the injured list. The rookie struck out seven, one off his career high, and for the first time since June 8, didn’t walk a batter.

The Twins’ final home game against the Guardians is Sunday afternoon, with another rookie, David Festa, on the mound for the home team.

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