Twins trip up Tribe, again

Associated Press

CLEVELAND

Michael Bourn took a risk and it backfired.

He got stopped dead in his tracks on Friday night and so did the Indians.

Bourn got thrown out trying to steal third base in the pivotal sixth inning, defusing Cleveland’s last scoring threat and the Indians had their climb back into the playoff picture slowed with a 5-1 loss to the Minnesota Twins.

With one out, Bourn took off on his own and was pegged at third by Minnesota catcher Chris Hermann, who made a perfect throw to nab Cleveland’s speedster.

“It kind of killed the inning a little bit,” Bourn said of his gamble to run on a 2-0 pitch. “If I would have stayed we would have had bases loaded, but that happens. I take blame for it.”

There was other blame to go around as the Indians missed a chance to make up ground in the wide-open, wild-card race.

Samuel Deduno pitched six solid innings and Josh Willingham busted out of a slump with a two-run double in the seventh as the Twins continued to play spoiler and befuddle the Indians.

Deduno (8-7) allowed just one run and three hits for his first win since July 27 as the Twins improved to 14-7 against the Indians since last September.

Willingham was in an 0-for-15 slide before his double off reliever Cody Allen put the Twins ahead 4-1.

Ubaldo Jimenez (9-8) struck out 10 in six innings, but the Indians didn’t support the right-hander and were leap-frogged by Baltimore in the wild-card standings.

Also, the Indians dropped six games behind AL Central-leading Detroit, which won 6-1 over the New York Mets.

Cleveland was home after a 6-3 road trip that put it back in the playoff conversation. One of six teams fighting for two wild-card berths, the Indians, as close to first as they’ve been this late in the season since 2007, were hoping to keep their momentum going against a Twins team playing for just pride with just over a month left in the regular season.

Minnesota, though, stopped Cleveland’s postseason push. The Indians may want to make the playoffs, but didn’t show much urgency to get to October.

Bourn, though, stayed positive.

“We ain’t lost no momentum,” he said. “We’re all right. We just lost a game.”