Cleveland Launches Six Home Runs, Buries Minnesota 13-4
Cleveland didn't just beat Minnesota on Monday — they detonated on them, hitting six home runs in a 13-4 final. Petey Halpin and Rhys Hoskins each went deep twice, and the Guardians had the game effectively over before the third inning was done.
The first inning set the tone immediately. Brayan Rocchio homered to right (383 feet) with Bazzana scoring ahead of him, swinging Cleveland's win probability from 49% to 69% in a single swing. Hoskins followed two batters later with a 401-foot shot to left, and just like that it was 3-0 before Minnesota had recorded three outs. Minnesota pushed back in the second — a Lee triple plated a run, and a Roden sacrifice fly made it 3-2 — but Cleveland answered with extreme prejudice. Halpin crushed a 411-foot shot to right center with Bailey aboard to make it 5-2, and Bazzana immediately followed with his own 385-foot blast to right center. A two-run Minnesota rally had been erased inside the same half-inning.
From there, the Guardians just kept adding. Hoskins hit his second homer of the night in the third, a 398-foot drive to left, pushing the lead to 7-2. Halpin answered his own encore in the fourth — a 396-foot shot to center for his second of the game. By the fifth, Bailey was singling home Schneemann to make it 9-2, and DeLauter's RBI single in the sixth pushed it to double digits. The story of the night was Cleveland's lineup operating as a complete unit: six different players homered, and the Guardians sent 17 hits to all parts of the park. Tanner Bibee handled the pitching side cleanly enough, going 6.0 innings and allowing just 2 earned runs on 6 hits with 5 strikeouts.
Minnesota did manage a few cosmetic runs — Larnach singled home a run in the seventh, and Caratini doubled home Bell in the eighth to make it 13-4 — but this one was never in doubt after the first. DeLauter's two-run double to right in the seventh, scoring Halpin and Manzardo, was the exclamation point on a night that looks like one of Cleveland's most complete offensive performances of the season. Halpin finished 3-for-5 with 2 HR, 3 RBI, and 3 runs scored. Bailey went 4-for-5 with a homer and 2 RBI. DeLauter added 4-for-5 with 3 RBI. This was a thorough, methodical dismantling, and Minnesota's pitching staff had no answers for it.