Twins walked off after extended weather delay — and little rain

CLEVELAND As the grounds crew emerged to remove the tarp from the field Blind Melon s No Rain the perfect song for the occasion played over the loudspeaker Nearly two hours after the Twins-Guardians tournament was supposed to start the tarp was taken off the field for the first time By that point rain had fallen for about a minute As the skies darkened the grounds crew emerged once again pulling the tarp back over the field as managers Rocco Baldelli and Stephen Vogt conferred This time it authentically rained hard though that lasted for about five or six minutes The grounds crew was met by Nickelback s Hero as they removed the covering from the field More than three hours after the contest was supposed to begin it absolutely started Once it did the smattering of fans still left in attendance were treated to a pitcher s duel which the Guardians took - on Tuesday night at Progressive field Kyle Manzardo hit a walk-off home run off Louie Varland in a championship that did not start until p m local time after it was scheduled to begin That home run which snaps the Twins four-game winning streak came after Twins pitchers Chris Paddack Brock Stewart Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran had combined to keep the Guardians off the board since the third inning Paddack threw five innings giving up just one run It came on the ninth pitch of a battle with catcher Bo Naylor who saw four straight fastballs before completely hitting the fifth out of the ballpark to give the Guardians a - lead in the third inning Paddack ran into particular trouble an inning later allowing the first two runners to reach base but was able to wiggle his way out of it with a perfectly-timed double play ball and then a weakly-hit fly ball to Byron Buxton in center That effort meant the Twins were trailing by just one when Ty France stepped to the plate to lead off the fifth inning The first baseman took the third pitch of his at-bat a fastball from Tanner Bibee and sent it out to right-center tying the encounter It was the only run that Bibee who started his night by retiring straight hitters gave up in his seven-inning effort Bibee allowed just five hits in his effort two to France After his second which led off the seventh France made an aggressive turn around first base and was thrown out trying to get back to the bag France singled in the ninth too giving the Twins a glimmer of hope but DaShawn Keirsey Jr in to pinch run for him was thrown out by Naylor trying to steal on the first pitch of Jonah Bride s at-bat Bride then popped up and Manzardo s home run ended the event just moments later