Cleveland Indians' Defense Run Down Minnesota Twins and Their Hopes

To brew up a classic pitcher’s duel, you need two hurlers at the top of their game, a reasonably generous umpire, and alert fielders. Only the fielders did their part on Sunday afternoon’s game between the Twins and the Indians, but the game stayed hitless until the fourth, and scoreless until the fifth. And no floodgates opened, even then. The Twins acquired one run, and scored first, and then the Indians tied it in the sixth and scored two more in the seventh to win 3-1. David Huff started for Cleveland, and through seven innings had the distinction of throwing only slightly more strikes than balls while holding the Twins to two measly hits. The first of them was a double by Nick Punto that scooted obediently just fair of the first base bag, then dribbled up the line, allowing the hustling Punto to make second. Denard Span followed with an RBI single to center to put the Twins up 1-0. The line score makes Huff look like a colossus, but the actual pitching component of ...