Cleveland could not have scripted a better tune-up before its biggest series of the season. Steven Kwan opened the game with a home run on the second pitch he saw, Jo Adell added one of the longer drives Target Field has witnessed in years, and the Guardians cruised to a 9-2 win over the Twins that closed out their road trip and set the stage for a critical showdown with the White Sox. Cleveland improved to 76 wins and 74 losses on the season, finishing the six-game trip through Baltimore and Minneapolis at 3-3.
The Guardians made sure everyone understood what comes next.
“The race for the Central is fully on,” the Cleveland Guardians posted.
The race for the Central is fully on.#GuardsBall | #GuardiWins pic.twitter.com/z9Tt8CQqeh
— Cleveland Guardians (@CleGuardians) September 13, 2026
Kwan set the tone before most fans had even settled into their seats. He turned around Joe Ryan’s second pitch of the game and sent it into the seats in right field, his third home run of the season and the eighth leadoff homer of his career. He was not done there, adding a single, a double and a walk over the rest of the afternoon, falling a triple short of the cycle while scoring twice and driving in two runs.
Adell delivered the most memorable blow of the day in the third inning, launching a drive that traveled well over four hundred feet and reached the third deck in left field, one of the longest home runs hit at Target Field in recent memory. It was his twenty-first homer of the season and his fifth since arriving in Cleveland at the trade deadline, a reminder of the kind of thump he has added to this lineup down the stretch.
Tanner Bibee made sure the early offense held up. The right-hander worked six and two-thirds innings, allowing two runs on four hits while striking out seven, picking up just his second win in his last ten starts.
Cleveland kept adding on throughout the afternoon. Travis Bazzana connected for a two-run homer in the sixth inning, his twelfth of the season and second of the road trip, and the Guardians tacked on three more runs in the ninth to finish the game with fourteen hits as a team, outhitting Minnesota by a wide margin.
The Guardians now trail Chicago by only half a game in the American League Central after the White Sox dropped their own game Sunday, and Cleveland maintained its one-game cushion over Toronto for the final AL Wild Card spot as well. That sets up a three-game series against the division-leading White Sox beginning Monday night at Progressive Field, with right-hander Gavin Williams taking the mound for Cleveland.
NEXT: Steven Kwan Is On An Incredible Second Half Run
