CLEVELAND — Just hours after learning they had lost the best bat in their lineup, the Cleveland Indians put together one of their best offensive performances of the season in a 12-2 victory over the Minnesota Twins.
The news that All-Star catcher Victor Martinez would undergo surgery on his ailing right elbow today and miss the next six to eight weeks didn’t seem to faze the Indians on Thursday night as they proceeded to smack the ball all over Progressive Field for a season-high 18 hits.
“They were swinging the bats well tonight,” Indians manager Eric Wedge said. “We had some good at-bats, some clutch hits and up and down the lineup there was just a bunch of great performances.”
Jamey Carroll and Ben Francisco each had four hits, outfielders Shin-Soo Choo and Grady Sizemore powered home runs into the left-field stands and Francisco and Casey Blake both hit long doubles. Six Indians finished with multihit nights and four had multiple RBIs in the one-sided victory.
“It’s obvious that our bats have been much better as of late … much more consistent,” Wedge said. “But that doesn’t always translate into hits. So (the big night) was really good to see.”
The Indians’ biggest inning came in the third when they scored five runs on five hits, including a three-run home run from right fielder Choo — just his second of the season. Cleveland also scored three runs in the fifth — led by Francisco’s two-out, two-run single — and two in the seventh on back-to-back run-scoring hits by Carroll and Francisco.
Carroll, who will be replace Josh Barfield — who joined Martinez on the 15-day disabled list Thursday — at second base, matched his career-high with four hits (for the sixth time) and went 8-for-9 with a double and two RBIs in the series vs. the Twins.
“You go through steaks in baseball,” said Carroll, who also had a pair of over-the-shoulder running catches in shallow center field. “You have some bad ones and you have some good ones … right now I’m going through a good one.”
Nearly lost in the offensive barrage was another solid outing by rookie pitcher Aaron Laffey, who allowed just one run in six innings to pick up his fourth win. Three of those hits were by Twins left-handed cleanup hitter Justin Morneau, while left-handed catcher Joe Mauer had another.
“That kind of killed my left-on-left percentage,” Laffey said with a laugh. “But that’s going to happen when you’re facing two guys like that.”
Not lost by Indians fans was the way their team helped wipe out Twins starter Livan Hernandez’s happy memories of their ballpark from 11 years ago.
The only other time Hernandez pitched in Cleveland, he was named World Series MVP after helping the Florida Marlins down the Indians in seven games during his rookie season in 1997.
Now the Indians will have fresh memories, and their first series win since a sweep of Oakland on May 13-15, as they prepare for a home interleague series against the San Diego Padres this weekend.
“We’re playing a team that we haven’t played before,” Wedge said. “We are going to have to do a lot of work to prepare for the next nine games because they’re all against National League opponents.
“We’ll just have to do the best we can.”
Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com.

TONIGHT

WHO: San Diego at Cleveland
TIME: 7:05
WHERE: Progressive Field
PITCHERS: Sowers (0-1, 6.91 ERA) vs. Banks (2-0, 0.39)
TV/RADIO: SportsTime Ohio; WEOL 930-AM, wWTAM 1100-AM

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