CLEVELAND – Josh Donaldson did his best Lou Brown impression ahead of Saturday's game.
He quoted a not-so-motivating speech from the fictional Cleveland manager in "Major League II": "Winning two in a row helps. If we win one more, that's called a winning streak."
The overly obvious quip was meant to make audiences laugh. Coming from the Twins, though, it just feels sad.
After a blowout 10-0 victory Friday at Progressive Field, the Twins petered out against real-life Cleveland, losing 5-3 Saturday in 10 innings via Cesar Hernandez's walk-off home run.
The Twins have not won a single extra-inning game this season, going 0-for-8. They have scored only once with the free runner placed on second base, on April 21 against Oakland with Byron Buxton's two-run homer that still didn't results in a win.
Luis Arraez, as the Twins' automatic runner on second Saturday, made it only as far as third base after a wild pitch. A line out from Donaldson and strikeouts by Max Kepler and Miguel Sano left the Twins scoreless in the 10th, an all-too-common occurrence.
"We had a chance to win. We're in another extra-inning affair. We haven't had, obviously, much luck in those situations," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "We haven't really played well once we've gotten to that point in the game, and other teams have certainly had some big hits and just made it happen once we got to that spot. And [Saturday] was another example of that."
Actually, it was a fairly eerie replay. Cleveland had already beaten the Twins in 10 innings at Progressive Field on April 26. Tied 3-3 then, the Twins couldn't do anything with their three at-bats, leaving Jordan Luplow to slap a fly ball to deep left field for a two-run homer that also scored Hernandez.