Bullpen to pitch split DH today after Fri. rainout

CLEVELAND -- Max Kepler and Miguel Sanó made their highly anticipated returns to the Minnesota lineup in Cleveland on Friday night, but Mother Nature decided to rain on the Twins’ parade -- literally.

Kepler singled in his first at-bat as the rebuilt top of the Twins’ lineup pushed across two runs against Indians rookie Aaron Civale in the first inning and Jake Odorizzi settled down after a rocky frame, but inclement weather pushed into the Cleveland area earlier than the clubs had anticipated, leading to a postponement following a 1-hour, 57-minute rain delay in the third inning at Progressive Field.

“There are definitely some positives and some negatives to both teams, certainly for us with this game being called,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Sitting here all night long and calling it at midnight would have been worse. Starting the game up again and putting one of our pitchers out there and getting pulled off the field due to rain that looked like it was coming, that would be significantly worse. Nobody wants that.”

That means that two of the three games that could swing the tide in the American League Central will be contested as part of a split doubleheader on Saturday at 12:10 p.m. CT and 6:10 p.m., and each team will be without one of its top starters after Civale and Odorizzi were burned in the postponed game.

The Twins are in first place in the division, 3 1/2 games ahead of the Indians as the rivals begin their final head-to-head series with 16 games remaining overall.

Because Minnesota is carrying a four-man rotation due to Michael Pineda’s suspension, Friday's postponement means the Twins will need to piece together 18 innings from their relief corps on Saturday as part of two consecutive bullpen games in the doubleheader. Baldelli had not yet determined his starting pitcher or pitching plan for either game and planned to do so with pitching coach Wes Johnson late Friday.

“This is a pretty unique experience,” Baldelli said. “I don’t know if I’ve seen the two bullpen days in one day, but I think we have the personnel to make it work.”

The Indians will counter with right-hander Mike Clevinger in the first game before also turning to a bullpen game in the nightcap. The Sunday matchup should remain between Jose Berrios and Shane Bieber, as expected.

The postponement also means that Jorge Polanco’s two-run homer in the first inning will be erased from the books -- as will Odorizzi’s final shot to pitch against the Indians, against whom he had recorded a 1.61 ERA in four starts this season, with 29 strikeouts in 22 1/3 innings.

Odorizzi made little effort to hide his frustration after the called game.

“There's a lot of ins and outs of it, stuff that we don't know about,” Odorizzi said. “But on the surface for me, it's [crappy] because this is my last time to see these guys this year, and I fared pretty well against them. That's that.”

Odorizzi, who arrived in Cleveland well ahead of the team on Thursday evening, had been anticipating rain in the forecast but still prepared as though it were a normal start. Meanwhile, the Twins engaged in a discussion before the game with the Indians, the MLB office and the umpiring crew, and according to Baldelli, the hope was that the teams could finish five or so innings before the rain rolled in, at which point there might have been relatively few innings to complete following a possible delay.

But the rain arrived sooner than expected, and given the circumstances, Baldelli felt postponing the game was the best course of action so that he wouldn’t need to burn another pitcher who could give the Twins possible length in Saturday’s doubleheader.

“You’d better embrace it a little bit,” Baldelli said of the challenge. “Really, all you’re trying to do is do what’s best for your team and your players, that’s all that matters. ... And truthfully, after everything that’s gone on for the last 24 hours, and not taking the risk of losing another length option for us in this game, this is a pretty good outcome.”

The good news, if there was any, was that the Twins finally got both Kepler and Sano back, and Jake Cave and Marwin Gonzalez also successfully participated in batting practice before the game and came out looking “really good,” according to Baldelli.

At this rate, the Twins might need all hands on deck to keep holding off the Indians in the divisional race on Saturday.