Tribe trumps Twins, Liriano

Bob Wickman earned his 14th save with a perfect ninth inning.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Casey Blake, Jhonny Peralta and Travis Hafner homered against Francisco Liriano, leading the Cleveland Indians to a 6-4 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Thursday night.
Liriano (10-2), the AL's ERA leader at 1.83 coming in, lost for the first time in seven starts, allowing one-fourth of the 12 home runs he has given up in his 117-inning career.
Cliff Lee (9-6) hung on for his sixth victory in eight outings -- giving up five hits, three runs (two earned) and three walks while striking out five in 52/3 innings.
Kelly Shoppach hit a homer for Cleveland in the ninth off Jesse Crain.
Nine of Lee's first 10 pitches were balls, and pitching coach Carl Willis paid an early visit to the mound. But Lee got Joe Mauer, the majors' leading hitter, to hit a fielder's choice and then struck out Michael Cuddyer and Justin Morneau to escape the first.
Lee didn't give up a hit until Shannon Stewart's bloop single in the fifth. Cuddyer's double in the sixth drove in the first run, and Morneau's sacrifice fly cut the lead to 5-2.
Cuddyer scored from second when Torii Hunter hit a dud between the mound and first base that Lee fumbled for an error as he tried to pick it up and collided with first baseman Victor Martinez.
Nick Punto's RBI double off Guillermo Mota pulled the Twins within 5-4 in the seventh, but Fausto Carmona worked a scoreless eighth and Bob Wickman did the same in the ninth for his 14th save.
Disappointing season
The Indians, one of the early favorites in the division after nearly winning it last year, were one of baseball's biggest first-half disappointments. Though they emerged from the break with faint hope and an 181/2-game deficit between them and the Tigers, they've been a strong late-summer team the last two seasons.
In 2005, Cleveland went 45-22 after the All-Star game before losing six of the last seven games to finish behind the World Champion White Sox. The year before that, they started the second half 21-10 and challenged Minnesota before fading.
As for the Twins? They surged over the .500 mark with a 21-2 spurt, but four losses out of five before the break halted their momentum and sent them 11 games behind Detroit and nine behind Chicago in the wild-card race. With an eight-game stand at the Metrodome against the Indians and Tampa Bay and the best home record in the majors, Minnesota was poised to start making up some ground.
This wasn't the way to begin.
Bad start
Liriano, a late addition to the AL squad who made a long, tiring trip from the Dominican Republic to Pittsburgh for Tuesday's All-Star game, had by far his worst start of the season.
The 22-year-old has one of baseball's best sliders, but the Twins have been trying to get him to rely on his fastball more and locate it better. He didn't do that, throwing only 57 of his 97 pitches for strikes.
Blake -- in his first game back from the disabled list due to a strained muscle on his left side -- hit a towering shot to left that made it 2-0 during an unusually cumbersome second inning for Liriano. He gave up five hits, five runs, four earned, and three walks while striking out six.
With the bases loaded on a single, walk and fielding error by Mauer, the catcher, Jason Michaels hit a sacrifice fly.
Notes
Cleveland's Ronnie Belliard had a career-long 14-game hitting streak end rather harshly with an 0-for-4, including two strikeouts and a double-play groundout. ... Minnesota ran out of left fielders with Stewart serving as the designated hitter. Regular Jason Kubel complained of sore knees before the game and was scratched. His replacement, Lew Ford, left after the fifth with what the team called a strained muscle on his right side. Punto moved from third to left to replace Ford.
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