N&N: Guardians RESPOND to 20-6 loss by... losing again, this time 8-3

On Monday, the Guardians began a 3-game series with the Twins that Kole Calhoun called a must-win. They lost 20-6. Then, Terry Francona called Tuesday’s game the biggest of the season. The team got embarrassed again, only slightly less.

Tanner Bibee was good, but Matt Moore gave up a run that tied the game at 3. Then Reynaldo Lopez was good, but Trevor Stephan gave up, uh, 5 runs, which, uh, untied the game from 3. Defense-only player Myles Straw whiffing on a line drive helped. That was the final score. 8-3, with 2022 Twin whipping boys Griffin Jax and Emilio Pagan painfully getting the W and final out, respectively.

Earlier in the day, the aforementioned team’s manager once again said all the retirement words except “I’m retiring” and a possible replacement frontrunner emerged, which Quincy wrote about here.

Around baseball

• The Marlins won their 5th in a row, and pulled to within a half game of a wild card spot because Josh Bell hit a go-ahead home run off of Clayton Kershaw.
• Jose Altuve hit solo home runs in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd innings against Texas’s horrible pitching. The Astros won 14-1. Austin Hedges pitched for the 2nd night in a row.
• Giancarlo Stanton hit his 400th home run.