The Cleveland Indians have struggled of late, but they'll look to get back on track Monday night when they open a three-game set with the Minnesota Twins at Target Field.
Cleveland went 7-0 on its previous homestand, but the team went 1-6 in its latest one.
"This team has been pretty streaky," outfielder Ryan Raburn said. "We'll get in those losing streaks and then we'll get in a good winning streak. We got a couple more big winning streaks ahead of us."
The sole victory came in Sunday's series finale with the Angels, 6-5. Cleveland put up four runs in the sixth inning and two more in the seventh to get starter Justin Masterson off the hook. Nick Swisher, Carlos Santana and Mike Aviles all homered in the win for the Indians, who will now begin a nine- game road trip.
"It didn't matter how we got it," Swisher said. "That's a much-needed win, not only for us but for our fans. It's crazy how this game works."
Meanwhile, the Twins are looking to build on this weekend's solid showing in Chicago, where they took three of four from the White Sox. On Sunday, Brian Dozier and Joe Mauer each homered in the fifth inning off Jose Quintana to help pave the way to a 5-2 victory. Kevin Correia pitched seven shutout innings to pick up his eighth win.
Andrew Albers gets the start on Monday. The left-hander made his big league debut against Kansas City on Tuesday and held the Royals to just four hits over 8 1/3 shutout innings. Manager Ron Gardenhire said he is anxious to seeing how the youngster follows up his encore performance.
"It's hard to put into words, but it was special to go out and have that kind of performance in your debut," Albers said of his debut. "Unfortunately, it's probably not going to get much better from there."
"I'm anxious to see how he'll back it up," Gardenhire said. "He'll be facing a good team, a really good team. They can swing it. So it'll be interesting to see how he does against those guys, too. A few more veterans over there, so it'll be interesting."
For Cleveland, rookie Danny Salazar is coming off an impressive showing against Detroit on Wednesday in his second career start. Salazar struck out 10 batters in 7 2/3 innings and exited after allowing a two-run homer in the eighth.
He'll hope for a litter more offensive production than what the team has delivered of late. Before plating six runs on Sunday, the Tribe had scored only 21 runs over their previous nine games.
The Indians have won five of nine against Minnesota this season.
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