Minnesota at Cleveland

Minnesota got run off the field Monday, a career-worst outing from Joe Ryan in a 13-4 loss where Cleveland hit seven home runs in one game. But two of those blasts came from Petey Halpin and Rhys Hoskins, hitters batting under .200 on the season, and that kind of power surge from the bottom of an order rarely repeats itself two nights running. Kendry Rojas gets an emergency start for the Twins tonight after a month of relief work. Still, the early returns are legitimate: a 2.79 ERA and opposing hitters batting .221 against him in his limited big-league look. Byron Buxton is back in the lineup off the injured list too, adding thump to an order that has more juice than Monday's shutdown suggested. Parker Messick is the best arm in this series by a wide margin, a sub-3.00 ERA lefty who allowed one earned run in six innings his last time out, and that's the honest problem with backing Minnesota here. But the number tonight isn't asking the Twins to win outright, just to avoid another laugher, and it's already ticked back toward Minnesota since it opened. I'm not fading a team off one outlier blowout built on two batters running hot. Minnesota wins on the runline tonight.