MINNEAPOLIS -- When a routine single skipped under the glove of Michael Bourn and started rolling toward the wall, things couldve gotten ugly for the Cleveland Indians. Zach McAllister made sure that didnt happen. McAllister won for the first time in almost three months, Ryan Raburn homered and the Indians beat the Minnesota Twins 5-2 on Tuesday night. With Minnesota down 5-1 in the sixth inning, Joe Mauer scored from first base on a single by Justin Morneau that skipped under the glove of centre fielder Michael Bourn for an error and rolled all the way to the warning track. McAllister fanned Josh Willingham and Oswaldo Arcia to end the inning and strand Mauer at third, getting several pats on the back from teammates as he walked back to the dugout. "Our defence has been great for us all year long. For us as pitchers, its our job to pick them up when they dont always do what we expect of them," McAllister said. "For us to be able to pick them up, its exciting and its great to know that they have our back and we have them when we need to." Cleveland had lost seven of its last eight and posted a 6.00 ERA during that stretch. Coming off his worst start of the season Thursday against Detroit, McAllister (5-7) bounced back and held Minnesota to one earned run and four hits in six innings. He struck out seven in his first win since May 23. Cleveland manager Terry Francona said the sixth inning was the highlight of McAllisters night. "Were getting to a point where youre thinking about maybe going to the bullpen," Francona said. "Hes up around 100 pitches and guys have seen him a couple times. He executed very well there." Josh Willingham homered for the Twins in the second inning, Minnesotas 23rd straight run from a home run -- an MLB record. But the Twins went 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position and are now 3-for-48 in those situations over their last six games. Mauer scoring on Bourns error was the first time Minnesota scored without a home run since Aug. 7. "We cant rely on home runs all the time," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "Its nice when we hit them but were going to have to drive in some of these runs with less than two outs and a mans on third. Unfortunately we didnt do it again tonight." The Indians led 3-1 in the sixth when Samuel Deduno (7-6) hit Carlos Santana in the toe with a pitch. Plate umpire Adam Hamari initially ruled that Dedunos pitch didnt hit him, but awarded Santana first base after conferring with the rest of his crew and changing the call. Rayburn then lined a home run into the left-centre field bleachers, a much-needed blast for a team that got shut out on Monday night by rookie Andrew Albers making his second major-league start. "You go through stretches where you cant get a hit. Its not like we havent been swinging the bat well," Rayburn said. "Last night, I dont know how many great plays they made off of us. Thats part of the game." McAllisters strong start was a boost for an Indians team that entered Tuesday in third place instead of second in the AL Central for the first time since June 17. After McAllister exited, Cody Allen and Joe Smith each pitched a perfect inning. Chris Perez allowed a two-out double to Arcia in the ninth, but retired Trevor Plouffe to end the game and record his 19th save in 22 chances. Bourn, Jason Kipnis and Michael Brantley added RBIs for Cleveland. "The game just didnt seem like it went anywhere. I wish I had more to offer than that," Gardenhire said. "I think about the game and nothing really happened too awfully exciting. Sammy gave up the runs, and we didnt do anything offensively." NOTES: The Indians signed former Blue Jays No. 1 pick David Cooper to a minor league deal and sent him to their spring training complex in Goodyear, Ariz. The 26-year-old first-baseman is expected to join Triple-A Columbus later this month. ... Minnesota acquired LHP Miguel Sulbaran from the Dodgers to complete the trade for C Drew Butera. The 19-year-old was 6-4 with a 3.01 ERA in 23 games for the Dodgers low Class A team. Minnesota GM Terry Ryan said he expects Sulbaran to be a starter in the Twins system. ... Twins rookie Kyle Gibson (2-3, 6.43 ERA) will try to pitch more than six innings for the first time in his career in Wednesdays series finale. ... Carlos Carrasco (0-4, 7.75 ERA) starts for Cleveland and will try to win for the first time since beating Arizona on June 29, 2011. Carrasco has lost his last 10 decisions. Mets Jerseys 2020 . -- Howie Kendrick had a two-run single in his first game batting leadoff this season, Chris Iannetta hit a pair of RBI singles and the Los Angeles Angels beat Cleveland 6-4 Tuesday night, sending the Indians to their fifth straight defeat. Fake Mets Jerseys . -- Kansas City Royals right-hander Luke Hochevar will have Tommy John surgery that will sideline the pitcher for the season. https://www.cheapmetsjerseys.us/ . With Van Osch out with a flu bug that has been rampaging through the tournament, Knezevic stepped in to lead B.C. (4-3) to a pair of victories on Tuesday before 1,131 at the Maurice Richard Arena. New York Mets Pro Shop . - Kentucky freshmen Stanley Boom Williams, Dorian Baker, Drew Barker and Tymere Dubose have been charged with disorderly conduct for their involvement with air pistol shots being fired near a residence hall on the South campus Sunday night. New York Mets Gear .ca presents its latest weekly power rankings for the 2013-14 Barclays Premier League season.Womens hockey is often seen as a battle between two powerhouses: Canada and the United States. Anything less than gold for either nation is considered a disappointment. Yet for Switzerland, advancing to the semifinal might be a victory in itself. Switzerland got by Russia on Saturday in their quarter-final, winning 2-0. The Swiss, led by their goalie Florence Schelling, will face Canada in the second semifinal on Monday at 12 p.m. ET, streaming live at cbc.ca/olympics. The United States plays Sweden in the earlier semifinal at 7:30 a.m ET after the Swedes beat Finland in a hard-fought quarter-final. Of course, the odds are heavily stacked in favour of the Canadians. Canada and Switzerland have met twice in womens Olympic ice hockey, with Canada winning both meetings. Their most recent Olympic encounter was their opening game in Sochi, in which Canada won 5-0. Their other Olympic match took place in a group match at Vancouver 2010, in which Canada routed the Swiss 10-1, with nine different players scoring. To make matters worse for the Swiss, theyre facing a Canadian squad that looks stronger than ever. History is not on Switzerlands side: Canada has not lost a match in Olympiic womens hockey since Nagano 1998, winning its last 18 games.dddddddddddd Canada has now won the gold medal in each of the previous three Olympic Games. Despite the overwhelming odds against them, the Swiss have reasons to feel good about their Sochi experience: Switzerland is guaranteed its best finish ever in womens Olympic hockey. Its previous best result was a fifth-place finish in Vancouver. Switzerlands head coach, René Kammerer, is feeling tremendous pride in his teams performance in Sochi. "I am so proud of the staff and the players. They have all put so much hard work in to this," Kammerer said. "We put up so much fight throughout that match and the goaltending and all of the teams performance was great."Kammerer added that he felt his teams good preparation ended up helping the Swiss do better this time around. "We had good preparation going into this game, especially about how to handle the noise from the home fans. We will enjoy this victory but we cant just simply tell our girls to win the next match. Plan A is to win and then we are guaranteed at least a silver. "I hope people know how dangerous we are now." ' ' '