CLEVELAND -- The return of Nelson Cruz to the Twins’ lineup could have been a jolt for one of the hottest offenses in the Major Leagues. But instead, it was the Indians that cruised with the long ball at Progressive Field, belting four homers off rookie left-hander Devin Smeltzer in a 5-2 loss for Minnesota on Tuesday night.
Though the Twins collected a pair of solo shots from Marwin Gonzalez and Eddie Rosario to extend their Major League-leading homer total to 111, they were otherwise held to only five hits -- their lowest hit total since May 5 -- by Indians righty Shane Bieber and two relievers.
After throwing six scoreless innings against the Brewers in his first Major League start, Smeltzer was similarly stingy and efficient against the Indians, allowing five hits and throwing only 82 pitches in 6 1/3 innings. He had a stretch between the first and fifth innings in which he retired 13 of the 14 hitters he faced and allowed only five hits in his outing.
But four of those five knocks left the yard, including a solo shot and a two-run blast by Francisco Lindor, and back-to-back homers in the seventh by Roberto Perez and Jake Bauers that chased Smeltzer from the game.
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The homers weren’t as frustrating to Smeltzer. Yes, he missed his spots, but he didn’t necessarily feel that they were big misses. Instead, he was more disappointed by his inability to be aggressive around the strike zone.
“The hits, I'm not worried about,” Smeltzer said. “I know they left the yard and that's frustrating. Like I said, a lot of [the Indians] were behind in counts, where they're going to hit the ball a little harder. I'm more frustrated with the walks. That can't happen."
The 23-year-old didn't issue a walk in his first start, but he dealt three free passes on Tuesday. Prior to Smeltzer's promotion to the Majors, he had only recorded multiple walks in two of his nine starts between Double-A Pensacola and Triple-A Rochester.
Only one of those three walks ultimately came back to bite Smeltzer, when his two-out free pass to Leonys Martin -- on a borderline 3-2 pitch at the bottom of the zone, at that -- preceded Lindor’s go-ahead two-run homer in the fifth inning.
But because Smeltzer doesn’t have overpowering stuff and mainly relies on generating weak contact to get his outs, he certainly wasn’t at his best when having to dig himself out of holes. That was the case in the first inning, when Smeltzer didn’t allow a run but fell behind four of the five hitters he faced and had to pitch out of a first-and-second, one-out jam.
“When I fall behind and I have to come over the white to make sure that there's no missed calls or nibbling or stuff like that, that's where I get hit,” Smeltzer said.
As a whole, though, Smeltzer didn’t feel that the quality of his pitches were all too different from those in his dominant outing against Milwaukee. He again flashed an extended stretch of that pitch-to-weak-contact ability as he rolled through the middle innings.
Through two starts in place of the injured Michael Pineda, Smeltzer has been, at minimum, an effective surprise addition to the Twins’ rotation depth. But with Pineda quickly on the mend, manager Rocco Baldelli was noncommittal after Tuesday’s game about whether or not the young southpaw would get another start.
“Let's just call it what it is -- he made a few pitches that he probably would want back to some good hitters, especially Lindor having the day he had today, swinging the bat the way he does,” Baldelli said. “But I think [Smeltzer] should be very happy. He got us deep into the game. He didn't just cover innings, but he covered them very well.”
“If I'm in the zone, I think tonight's a different night,” Smeltzer said.