Twins can’t hold lead as Guardians rally with three runs in 10th to win 5-4

CLEVELAND – Ronny Henriquez has never saved a major league game in his 18-game major league career, had never even been given an opportunity before Wednesday night.

It showed.

The rookie righthander, forced into his first-ever extra-inning action because the Twins’ late-inning specialists have been so overworked, faced four batters and allowed two hits and a walk, eventually turning an against-the-odds Twins victory into a devastating 5-4 loss to the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field.

The Twins have held leads in the eighth inning or later in all three games here this week. “We’ve just been challenged to finish the games,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli understated after the Twins gave away their lead for the second time in three days.

“We’re all trying our best. We’re all doing our best. Nobody here is trying to throw games away,” said Carlos Correa, who drove in all four Twins runs with a trio of singles. “Tough times come, and you’ve got to know how to come back the next day and forget about it.”

The Guardians can officially eliminate the Twins from the race for the AL Central title with a win in the series finale Thursday afternoon. Worse, Wednesday’s loss, combined with Detroit’s fourth straight victory, cut Minnesota’s lead for the final AL wild-card berth to just a half-game over the Tigers.

BOXSCORE: Cleveland 5, Twins 4 (10)

MLB standings

Bailey Ober was a complete mystery to eight of the nine Guardians he faced over seven strong innings. But Josh Naylor, among the top 10 home run hitters in the American League this year? He had a solution.

Naylor clobbered the first pitch he saw from Ober, a middle-of-the-plate fastball, 445 feet into the stands in right-center in the second inning. In the seventh, Naylor watched two changeups go by, fouled off two more changeups, then barreled up the fifth one he saw, his 31st homer of the season.

“It’s tough. You want to pitch in important games, whether in the regular season or the postseason,” said Ober, whose team hasn’t scored more than four runs while he’s been in a game since July 4. “Two solo shots is OK. I feel like he was the only guy I didn’t really execute against.”

Naylor’s bombardment aside, Ober was the big-game pitcher the Twins were hoping for all night. He allowed only four hits, never more than one in an inning, and struck out a career-high 12 Guardians, always at least one per inning.

But the Twins’ offense, strangled by Cleveland pitching in every meeting — the Twins have scored 36 runs in 12 games, more than four runs only once — was all but silent once again.

Correa came through, though, with ground balls in the first and fifth innings that brought home Willi Castro each time. Castro doubled his way on the first time, and in the fifth, he was hit in the foot by a Tanner Bibee slider, breaking Chuck Knoblauch’s team record and making Castro the first Minnesota Twin ever to be hit by 20 pitches in one season.

Correa’s 10th-inning line drive to center scored both Manuel Margot and Royce Lewis, and with a 4-2 lead, appeared to put the Twins in charge of a tense game.

But Louie Varland and Jhoan Duran had pitched in relief of Ober, and Griffin Jax and Cole Sands were both unavailable, Baldelli said, after pitching three innings apiece in the past three days.

He settled on Henriquez for the 10th.

“Whoever we brought in was going to get some pinch-hitters, some matchups on the other side of the plate, and Ronny has a pitch mix that he can throw to those guys. That’s how we landed on him,” Baldelli said. “Ronny has stepped into a couple of big spots for us and done a good job.”

Henriquez took over for Twins’ closer Jhoan Duran, who had retired the Guardians in order in the ninth, with the assignment of protecting the Twins’ 4-2 lead built on Carlos Correa’s three clutch hits. But the first batter he faced, pinch-hitter Kyle Manzardo, singled home Naylor from second, igniting the crowd once more.

“It was a just a pitch that was a little elevated. But I felt good, normal,” Henriquez said. “My pitches were just not in the locations I wanted.”

He walked Andrés Giménez on four pitches to ratchet up the pressure, then surrendered a single to pinch-hitter Will Brennan that drove home the tying run.

The rookie did strike out Bo Naylor, but he was relieved by Michael Tonkin. Light-hitting shortstop Brayan Rocchio then lofted Tonkin’s second pitch into right field, scoring Giménez with the winning run.