Twins drop to season-worst nine games below .500 after loss to Guardians

Bobby Nightengale, The Minnesota Star Tribune on Sep 11, 2026

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — The Twins acquired three pitchers at the trade deadline, hopeful it would bolster their bullpen for a playoff push over the last two months of the season.

Those playoff dreams ended sometime in the past week, and the bullpen didn't even let the Twins play spoiler Friday at Target Field.

Twins closer Yoendrys Gómez gave up three go-ahead runs in the ninth inning, and A.J. Minter allowed a two-run homer in the seventh during a 5-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians.

The Twins (69-78) are a season-worst nine games below .500, and all but eliminated in the playoff race. They are 5 1/2 games behind Cleveland with 15 games remaining in their season.

With a 2-2 score entering the ninth inning, Travis Bazzana drew a leadoff walk and Angel Martínez lined a one-out double to the right-field corner. Gómez walked the bases loaded against pinch hitter Angel Genao before the go-ahead run scored on a low change-up that squeaked past catcher Ryan Jeffers.

Brayan Rocchio, following the run-scoring wild pitch, hit a two-run single into the right-center gap.

Twins starter Taj Bradley struck out six and yielded only one hit across six scoreless innings, though his outing came with four walks.

Cleveland scored two runs within three batters after Bradley exited. Minter, who entered Friday with one run allowed in 15 innings since the Twins traded for him, gave up a leadoff single to Travis Bazzana. Two batters later, Angel Martínez crushed a first-pitch fastball into the left field seats for a go-ahead, two-run homer.

Martínez's homer traveled an estimated 445 feet. Minter has allowed eight earned runs in 39 1/3 innings between the Twins and New York Mets, and all those runs came via one of the six homers he's surrendered this year.

The Twins tied the score in the bottom of the seventh inning. Austin Martin was hit by a pitch and advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt from Walker Jenkins. With two outs, Twins rookie shortstop Kaelen Culpepper lined a tying RBI single into left field.

It was a pitchers' duel — in typical fashion for a Twins-Guardians game — between Bradley and rookie of the year candidate Parker Messick. Cleveland's lefty starter gave up three hits and one run in 5 1/3 innings.

The Twins took a lead in the second inning when Kody Clemens hit a ground-ball single through the middle of the infield and Royce Lewis followed with an RBI double to the left field wall. Messick didn't permit another hit until the sixth inning.

Bradley saw the leadoff batter reach base in each of the first four innings (three walks and a single), but only one of them reached second base. Bradley retired his final eight batters, lowering his ERA to 3.81 through 29 starts.