Morneau delivers as Twins top Tribe

7/28/2008

CLEVELAND Justin Morneau decided he needed to try something different if he was going to get a hit off Rafael Perez.

The former American League MVP, 1-for-8 in his career against the tough left-hander, hit an RBI double off Perez to spark a two-run ninth inning and the Minnesota Twins beat the Cleveland Indians 4-2 yesterday to move within 2 games of first place in the AL Central.

Alexi Casilla started the rally with one out, lining a pitch from Perez (1-2) down the left-field line for a ground-rule double. After Mike Redmond struck out, Morneau doubled to left-center on a high slider, scoring Casilla for a 3-2 lead.

He threw me the pitch I was looking for on 2-0, but I didn t swing at it, Morneau said. He threw me the same pitch on 3-1. I pulled the trigger and took it the other way.

Indians manager Eric Wedge didn t consider walking Morneau, the 2006 AL MVP who is hitting .318 and leads the Twins with 16 homers and 76 RBIs this season.

Perez is one of the best in the game against lefties and has handled Morneau pretty well, Wedge said. He just made a bad pitch there.

Jason Kubel singled home Morneau to make it 4-2.

Matt Guerrier (6-4) got three outs in the eighth for the win with the help of a fine catch by center fielder Denard Span and Joe Nathan pitched a perfect ninth for his 28th save in 30 chances.

Minnesota took two of three in the series to improve to 29-18 in the AL Central.

The Indians have lost 4-of-5 and are 13 games under .500.

Cleveland took a 1-0 lead in the second on a sacrifice fly by Sal Fasano.

Indians starter Jeremy Sowers had a perfect game through five innings, but Craig Monroe opened the sixth with a bloop double to right. Within minutes, the left-hander trailed, 2-1.

That hit didn t bother me as much as if it had been a broken-bat grounder going through, Sowers said. It was a big-league hitter being strong enough to muscle a ball out there where nobody can get to it.

The Twins loaded the bases on a walk and bunt single, then scored their runs on a fielder s choice grounder by Span and groundout by Casilla.

We had some good things happen with the ball not going 50 feet to get two runs, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. Someone in the dugout said, That s Twins baseball.

Sowers, coming off his first win in more than a year July 19 at Seattle, gave up two runs and three hits over eight innings, striking out five.

Twins starter Nick Blackburn allowed one run and four hits over seven innings and left with a 2-1 lead.