MINNESOTA -- In back-to-back games against the Cleveland Guardians last week, the Minnesota Twins’ bullpen crumbled. The offense supplied its relievers with a two-run lead heading into the eighth inning on Tuesday and a three-run lead entering the ninth inning on Wednesday. The Twins lost both games, and the AL Central lead in the process.\n\nThat naturally left questions about how far an unstable bullpen would allow these playoff hopefuls to go. And while no week-long stretch following those losses will provide any definitive answers or erase all concern, the Twins have answered the bell about as well as they could have. Sunday's 6-3 win over the Rockies was just the latest entry in a series of stellar bullpen outings.\n\n“I’ve seen some fortitude and some unwillingness to break in some very challenging spots,” twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of the bullpen’s response to the tough stretch. “...There was no giv\\[ing\\] in.”
Since Wednesday’s 11-10 loss to the Guardians, Minnesota’s bullpen has not allowed a run, spanning four games and 14 innings. Each time, relievers have either held leads or not allowed deficits to get worse.\n\nStarter Joe Ryan left the game after a shaky but resilient five innings with a 5-3 lead. From there, it was up to the bullpen. Let’s take a deeper look at how they finished it off:
**6th inning** \n
Cron fouled off two inside fastballs to begin the at-bat.\n\n“Then I felt like I had him sped up enough that if I got a breaking ball off the plate, that I would get weak contact,” Pagán said.\n\nHe did one better, striking him out to end the inning.
**7th inning** \nPagán returned in the 7th for his second inning of work. Unlike Wednesday’s loss, when Pagán returned for the ninth inning after pitching the eighth and proceeded to give up four runs, Pagán made quick work of the Rockies. Brendan Rodgers and Ryan McMahon grounded out and Elehuris Montero struck out to end the inning.\n\n“To come in, be ready, focus, and get those outs was huge,” Baldelli said.\n\nPagán has tried not to be too results-based. Statistics can become inflated in the bullpen with a single bad outing, he explained, and not reflect the truth of how a pitcher is throwing.\n\n“It's easy to look at results sometimes and fall into the trap that you're not throwing the ball well,\" Pagán said. \"I know that it can kind of be cliché, but it's cliché because it's true. You can throw the ball great and have bad results. You can throw terrible and punch out the side.”
**8th inning** \nMinnesota turned the eighth inning over to
**9th inning** \nSeemingly the only reliever in the ’pen who hasn’t struggled is