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

Simeon Woods Richardson pitched a career-high seven innings Saturday, 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 commanding performance, the rookie righthander 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 deposited his first pitch of the sixth inning onto the right-field plaza, and those two pitches led Cleveland to a 2-1 victory over the Twins at Target Field.

“We play the hardest sport in the world, dude,” Woods Richardson said of those two unfortunate fastballs. “That’s baseball, man. Solos in the game [usually] don’t hurt you. … It happens.”

The defeat, played in only 1 hour, 58 minutes before a noisy crowd announced at 30,314, dropped the Twins 2½ games behind the Guardians in the AL Central, and allowed the Kansas City Royals, who arrive here for three games starting 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, who have scored only 22 runs in eight meetings this season, from extending innings with clutch hits.

“There wasn’t a ton going on, except a lot of good pitches being made by the pitchers. We never really got off the ground offensively,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “It was a tight ballgame and we needed to do more offensively.”

Gavin Williams wasn’t having it, though. The Cleveland starter, who entered with an ERA of 4.91, matched Woods Richardson’s four hits against, but none of them left the playing field. And on the occasions when the Twins threatened to score, they went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position.

That marked the fourth time this season that the Twins have gone hitless with runners in scoring position vs. Cleveland; their cumulative total in those eight games is 6-for-60.

At least two of those outs Saturday were useful, as back-to-back groundouts after Willi Castro’s leadoff double in the sixth inning brought home their 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.

“Bases loaded with no outs — we’re in good shape to score a run or two or three,” Baldelli said. “But it didn’t happen.”

That’s because the ball was hit directly at Kwan, and he looked for a moment like he might try to make a diving catch. That forced Jeffers to stop halfway to third base, unsure whether it was safe to proceed.

“It’s such a hard play. He’s a Gold Glover out there who doesn’t play super deep [and] I didn’t know how hard it was hit,” Jeffers said. “The worst thing you can do there is getting doubled off second” for a double play. … I don’t know what else I could have done.”

Kwan fielded the ball on a bounce, and his throw beat Jeffers to third base for a force out. Two more ground balls ended the inning without a run, and the Twins never again had two runners on base at once.

“He still had to make the pick and throw a strike to third. It’s a really tough play,” Jeffers said. “If the ball was more to one side or the other, I can make a read on it, but [it was] straight at him. … It’s just got all the right ingredients.”

All of which wasted a memorable performance by Woods Richardson (3-3), 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 fell to 13-7 when he starts.

“It just felt like I was executing my pitches. I was just going with what Jeffers was putting down,” Woods Richardson said. “The best baseball players can handle adversity … learn and adapt from it. That’s kind of what I’m trying to do.”