The Guardians spent Monday night doing something no Cleveland team had ever done before.
Against the Minnesota Twins, the bats came alive in a way that sent the franchise record book into a frenzy. Petey Halpin’s solo homer in the fourth inning - the second of his career - pushed Cleveland to six home runs through the first four innings, and that had never happened in any of the club’s 19,574 previous regular season games.
By the time the night was over, the Guardians had piled up seven homers in a 13-4 win. That tied a franchise record for a home game and marked the first time Cleveland had reached that total in any game since 2019.
Luke Potosky captured just how unusual the moment was.
“In @CleGuardians’ 19,574 previous regular season games played in franchise history, they never hit six home runs in the first four innings of a game. Petey Halpin just changed that with his second career home run,” Potosky wrote.
Halpin’s swing also put him in a small group on this season’s roster. He became the third Cleveland player to post a multi-home run game this year, joining Chase DeLauter and Travis Bazzana.
The damage started early and kept coming. Rocchio and Hoskins went back-to-back in the first inning, then Halpin and Bazzana each went deep in the second. Every one of the six homers before Halpin’s fourth-inning blast came off Twins starter Joe Ryan, who finished by tying the modern-era record for most home runs allowed in a single outing.
Afterward, manager Stephen Vogt said watching his hitters square up pitches like that was one of the best feelings in the world, and he praised the group for getting good pitches to hit and not missing them all night long.
It was a different kind of night for a team that has leaned on pitching depth and situational hitting to stay in the AL Central race. But if Cleveland can start pairing that kind of thunder with what it’s already been getting on the mound, Monday may be remembered as more than just a wild outburst.
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