Right-hander Taj Bradley delivered a dominant performance, striking out 10 batters over seven innings to lead the Minnesota Twins to a 3-1 victory over the Cleveland Guardians on Tuesday at Target Field.
Bradley improved to 8-3 on the season, allowing only three hits and no walks.
He retired 12 of the final 14 batters he faced, relying on a four-seam fastball averaging over 97 mph along with an effective cutter and splitter.
Guardians manager Stephen Vogt praised Bradley's outing. "He had two good off-speed pitches ...
he was phenomenal," Vogt said. "We were not able to lay off anything down as a whole and it showed.
When a guy's throwing 98 and they're good, that's what happens."
Cleveland's only run came on a 416-foot solo home run by Rhys Hoskins in the second inning. Hoskins noted the difficulty of adjusting to Bradley's sequencing.
"When the guy has 99 in the tank, a good fastball, and then just throwing two off-speeds where he wants to, you kind of have to pick," Hoskins said.
"He tunneled well with his fastball. He threw some down and I think that got us to chase down and away on him.
He just executed pitches."
Guardians starter Joey Cantillo took the loss despite allowing zero earned runs over five innings.
A series of defensive miscues in the second inning led to two unearned runs for Minnesota. Vogt credited Cantillo for navigating the difficult inning.
"He had to get six outs that second inning," Vogt said. "To turn in five innings with that performance ...
we gave them six outs there in the second, but he pitched around some trouble and did a really nice job."
Cantillo remained optimistic about his outing. "We were able to get back in the zone, which is important," he said.
"That second inning didn't go our way, but we made a better adjustment getting ahead of guys a little better toward the end of the game."
Minnesota added an insurance run in the seventh inning against reliever Erik Sabrowski. Josh Bell singled and scored on a two-out RBI triple by Kody Clemens.
Cleveland outfielder Chase DeLauter went 2-for-3, recording his fifth multi-hit game since returning from the injured list on June 28.
The loss dropped Cleveland to 1-8 this season when limited to three hits or fewer. Hoskins reflected on the team's plate discipline.
"The human nature thing is, 'We're not scoring runs, we've got to swing,'" he said. "Well, swinging at the right pitches in the right counts.
We've already shown this year that we can be stubborn and just pass our at-bat to the next guy and walk to first base.
Sometimes, as hitters, we just try to swing our way out of it and that's not always the best way to go."
