Oscar Gonzalez went 4-for-5 with two home runs and five RBIs to lead the Cleveland Guardians to a 7-6 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Friday night in Minneapolis.
It was the first career multi-homer game for the rookie, who had hit just five major league home runs entering the contest.
Austin Hedges also homered and had two hits for the Guardians (71-65), who jumped out to a 7-0 lead and then had to hold on for their third win in the past nine games.
Cleveland’s Josh Naylor had three hits and scored twice and Amed Rosario added two hits.
Cal Quantrill (12-5) extended his personal winning streak to eight over his past 11 starts, allowing two runs (one earned) on nine hits over five innings. He walked one and struck out seven.
Emmanuel Clase pitched a 1-2-3 ninth with a pair of strikeouts for his 32nd save of the season.
Carlos Correa went 4-for-5 with a homer and four RBIs, Jose Miranda had two doubles and a single and Gio Urshela also had three hits for Minnesota (69-68), which dropped into third place in the American League Central with the loss.
Dylan Bundy (8-7) gave up seven runs on a career-high 12 hits over 4 2/3 innings. He fanned one and didn’t issue a walk.
Cleveland jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning on an RBI single by Naylor followed by a three-run homer by Gonzalez.
The Guardians extended the lead to 5-0 in the fourth when Hedges led off with his seventh homer of the season.
Cleveland, which had hit just three homers in its previous 13 games, made it 7-0 in the fifth with its third home run of the game. Gonzalez sent a 420-foot, two-run blast deep into the second deck in left-center.
Minnesota cut the gap to 7-2 in the bottom of the fifth on RBI singles by Miranda and Urshela.
In the sixth, the Twins closed within 7-4 on a two-run single by Correa. The hit drove in Sandy Leon, who had walked, and Luis Arraez, who had doubled.
Correa made it 7-6 in the eighth with his 19th homer of the season, a two-run blast to left-center off James Karinchak. It was the 900th hit of Correa’s career and also snapped a 25 1/3-inning scoreless streak by Karinchak.
–Field Level Media