Robbie Grossman’s swinging strikeout against Nick Goody to end the first game of Thursday's doubleheader was the icing on a very frustrating cake for the Minnesota Twins. Not only did it cap a 9-3 loss to push the Twins back to .500, but also sealed a dubious team record as the 19th time a Twin had struck out against Indians pitching.

In fact, most of the game was emblematic of the Twins’ recent pursuit of the Indians in the standings. The Indians didn’t play particularly well all day, and let the Twins hang around almost all afternoon despite a litany of miscues. The Indians kept the Twins at arm’s length for the entire nine innings before busting loose for six runs over the final two innings to seal the deal and improve to 66-52 on the season.

The loss also dropped the Twins to 0-9 against the Indians at Target Field in 2017.

The trouble started -- like it tends to -- for the Twins and especially Kyle Gibson in the first inning. The tall righty allowed a pair of earned runs in the opening frame, but was lucky it wasn’t more as the Tribe loaded the bases with nobody out before settling for a two-run single from Jay Bruce and nothing else.

“They fouled off a lot of pitches,” Gibson said. “I think in that first inning, I was probably 1-2 on almost everybody. I didn’t have many first-pitch strikes, but I got to two strikes on a lot of those guys, but they hit some balls where guys weren’t, unfortunately.”

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