MINNEAPOLIS — Chris Perez dreamed of this scenario many times while living with Danny Valencia at the University of Miami.

Travis Buck takes a Francisco Liriano pitch off the helmet Tuesday in Minneapolis. Buck was forced to leave the game. (AP photo.)

Bottom of the ninth. Bases loaded. Game on the line. Perez on the mound and Valencia in the box.

The outcome wasn’t quite what he had in mind.

Valencia hit a two-run single off Perez in the ninth inning, sending the Minnesota Twins to a 2-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday night.

Perez’s pitch on the inside corner broke Valencia’s bat, but the third baseman had just enough on it to bloop it into left field, scoring Joe Mauer and Michael Cuddyer and giving the Twins a much-needed bounce-back victory.

“Of course,” said Perez, who lived with Valencia for two years in college and has known him since they were 17-year-old high schoolers in South Florida. “At least I got the bat. You can’t be too happy about that hit. He’s happy because they won, but I’ll take that swing every time. It just fell in there.”

The Indians were looking to take an eight-game lead over the fourth-place Twins in the AL Central when Perez (2-5), the All-Star closer with 22 saves in 23 chances, took the mound.

But the right-hander was a little off from the start, walking Mauer with one out and giving up a bloop hit that Cuddyer stretched into a double. Jim Thome was intentionally walked to load the bases, and Valencia came to the plate for the long-awaited showdown.

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“I thought I made some good pitches to Mauer,” Perez said. “One of the four that he called balls, are strikes to 90 percent of the league. But that’s baseball, too. So, I didn’t make pitches when I needed to.”

Valencia was in Perez’s wedding, and said he was waiting for a slider.

“I’m sure he wants to throw a slider because he’s always said that’s what he’s going to strike me out with,” Valencia said. “Luckily enough he couldn’t get ahead and he gave me a pitch I could hit good enough to get to the outfield and it fell in there.”

It was a huge emotional lift for Minnesota, which was swept in a day-night doubleheader to start the series Monday.

“He’s a guy who’s been pretty much money for us since last year, especially in one-run situations,” Indians manager Manny Acta said. “So, they just got to him with those couple of well-placed singles.”

Cleveland fell into a tie with Detroit for the division lead. The Tigers rallied to beat Oakland 8-3 at Comerica Park.

The Twins were dominated for most of Tuesday’s game by Justin Masterson, who allowed four hits and struck out six in 7 2/3 innings. With a fastball that hit 97 mph and a heavy sinker that routinely was clocked between 93 and 94, the right-hander with the big, looping delivery mowed through Minnesota’s struggling lineup.

He retired 13 straight hitters before running into trouble in the seventh when Mauer reached on an error and Cuddyer singled to put two on with nobody out. But the big righty fanned Thome and got Valencia to ground into an inning-ending double play to preserve the lead.

A scary moment happened in the fifth inning when a 91 mph fastball got away from Francisco Liriano and hit Travis Buck in the helmet. The ball smacked just above Buck’s ear flap and ricocheted into the stands as a sellout crowd held its breath.

A dazed Buck sat down in the dirt, but was able to get up and walk off the field under his own power a few moments later.

“I hope he’s OK,” Liriano said.

The Indians announced that Buck left with a head contusion and said there were no immediate signs or symptoms of a concussion.

Luis Valbuena came in to run for Buck and stayed in the game in left field, just the second time in his career he’s played in the outfield. The other came on Aug. 19, 2010, at Kansas City. Michael Brantley was sick, so Valbuena was an emergency fill-in.

Looking a little rattled, Liriano gave up a single to Ezequiel Carrera to load the bases with nobody out. But he wiggled out of the jam, only allowing a sacrifice fly to Asdrubal Cabrera.

Perez’s night didn’t figure to get any easier when he left the ballpark. He planned to spend the night at Valencia’s place in Minneapolis.

“I will be tweeting a picture of me and him,” Valencia said. “We’re just going to be watching the highlight over and over again.”

Perez figured he at least deserved something out of the deal.

“He’s buying dinner,” Perez said.

NORTH RIDGEVILLE — Fifteen-year-old Allie Messer shrugged off 90-degree heat and pounded nails into a platform for a new roof on a house on Hedgerow Park Drive.

Aaron Doyle, 16, of Salem, Va.; Alan Gossett, 17, of Polkville, N.C.; and Allie Messer, 15, of Canton, N.C., work on installing drip rail Tuesday at a North Ridgeville home. (CT photo by Chuck Humel.)

She said she is looking forward to completing the job with other youth volunteers and seeing the reaction from the homeowners.

“It’s fun to meet new people, and I like doing stuff for God,” said Allie, of Canton, N.C. “It’s all God, all week.”

Hammers are pounding on 17 job sites around Lorain County as a contingent of about 200 young people from around the United States are helping people do badly needed home repairs.

The program involves a number of churches and is being coordinated by staff at Chestnut Ridge Baptist Church including the Rev. Darrell Myers.

Myers said the weeklong work fest is especially meaningful because participants are praying for church members Tom Tomasheski and his 13-year-old daughter Danielle, who are recovering from injuries suffered in a June 11 crash that killed Tomasheski’s wife, Tammy, and Danielle’s 11-year-old brother, Tommy.

“When you lose somebody that special and unique, your life is never the same,” Myers said.

Tom Tomasheski, a corporal at the Lorain County Jail, was upgraded Tuesday to fair condition at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, while Danielle is now undergoing rehabilitation after being released July 6 from Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.

Myers said the mission work has been planned for a long time, and the church worked with the city of Elyria to get funding for the home repairs there.

Other people who needed assistance in other communities also are getting wheelchair ramps, painting or home repairs they otherwise could not afford, said Don Hyer, a Chestnut Ridge church member.

“They’re going into communities and helping less-fortunate people who can’t afford to keep their properties up,” said Hyer, who is working as a supervisor. “We had a handful of people who could afford the materials but not the labor.”

If the tragedy involving the Tomasheski family had not occurred, Tom “would have gotten out there and help these kids and been a crew chief … he and Tammy both were great.”

Hyer’s 22-year-old son, Greg, said he put 100 miles on his vehicle Monday as a “runner” getting necessary materials.

“By the end of the week, you’re sleeping pretty good,” he said of the mission work.

At night, the young people sleep at Midview North Elementary School, and they take turns showering in the locker rooms at the high school.

Allie, who was working on a roof in North Ridgeville, said the evenings are set aside for youth devotion and teaming up with a prayer partner. She said it was very touching when the Rev. Myers shed tears while talking about the Tomasheskis at a service.

Contact Cindy Leise at 329-7245 or cleise@chroniclet.com.

MINNEAPOLIS — Grady Sizemore’s hard-nosed style of play could be coming with a price for the Cleveland Indians.

The Indians placed their center fielder back on the 15-day disabled list on Monday with a bruised right knee. It’s his third stint on the DL this season, and sixth of his career. Sizemore was sent back to Cleveland to have tests done on his knee before making any estimates about how much time he will miss this time around.

Sizemore joins a swollen disabled list in Cleveland that includes outfielders Shin-Soo Choo and Trevor Crowe and infielder Jason Donald. It’s tough timing for the Indians, who began a critical four-game series against the Twins on Monday with a five-game lead over Minnesota in the AL Central Division.

Sizemore is hitting .237 this season with 21 doubles, 10 homers and 29 RBIs in 61 games.

Ezequiel Carrera will get most of the time in center field in Sizemore’s absence, with Austin Kearns and Travis Buck platooning in right field.

MINNEAPOLIS — Anthony Swarzak and Scott Diamond gave the Minnesota Twins a pair of credible performances for a couple of stopgap starters on this sweltering day.

Cleveland’s David Huff delivers a pitch in the first inning of the Indians’ Game 1 win Monday in a doubleheader sweep of the Twins. (AP photo.)

In the end, there were too many bobbled balls and not enough clutch hits, and all that sweat yielded nothing but two big losses.

Asdrubal Cabrera’s three-run homer off Swarzak in the third inning of the first game and Lou Marson’s tiebreaking solo shot in the seventh inning of the second game highlighted a doubleheader sweep for the Cleveland Indians, 5-2 and 6-3 on Monday.

“It’s a long day,” said Joe Mauer, who had six hits, three in each game. “A little longer when you lose.”

After climbing Sunday as close to the AL Central lead as they’d been since April 26, five games back, the Twins took a tumble on one tough day — falling to seven games behind the first-place Indians.

Travis Hafner had two hits and two RBIs in the second game, and Michael Brantley finished with five hits for the Indians on one of those days when scorecards worked better as personal fans and faces glistened in sweat.

Marson also doubled and scored in the fifth against Diamond, who turned in a decent major league debut but took the defeat. Fausto Carmona (5-10) came off the disabled list and won for only the second time in his last 12 starts, beating the heat to finish six innings with two runs allowed.

Cabrera added an RBI single in the nightcap.

After Marson’s first homer of the season made it 3-2, third baseman Danny Valencia overran a dribbler hit by Ezequiel Carrera for an error. Carrera later scored on a single by Hafner, the first and only batter faced by Phil Dumatrait. Diamond left the mound to a standing ovation, tipping his cap in appreciation after smiling upon being congratulated by manager Ron Gardenhire.

“It was unbelievable. What a lot of kids dream of,” Diamond said.

Diamond was acquired by the Twins last December through the major league draft at the winter meetings — Rule 5, as it’s referred to — and kept in the organization at the end of spring training when they traded minor league pitcher Billy Bullock to the Atlanta Braves.

With Triple-A Rochester, Diamond is 4-8 with one complete game and a 4.70 ERA in 17 starts. He was summoned to make this start when right-hander Scott Baker, arguably Minnesota’s best starting pitcher before the All-Star break, landed on the disabled list due to a strained right elbow.

Swarzak (2-3) pitched six innings in the opener, giving up four runs, three earned. An error by second baseman Alexi Casilla led to one score in Cleveland’s four-run fourth, and Cabrera’s three-run shot capped the big inning.

“I was rushing through my delivery a little bit today and they made me pay,” Swarzak said. “That was a huge inning. In a game like this where it was in and off the field as quick as possible, it’s tough.”

Carmona picked up where starter David Huff (1-0) left off after the first game. Huff pitched seven shutout innings. Returning from a strained right quadriceps muscle, Carmona allowed seven hits, struck out one and walked none, helping the Indians reassert themselves atop the division and cool off the surging Twins, who were 20 games under .500 at the beginning of June.

Diamond lasted 6 1-3 innings and was charged with four runs, three earned, and seven hits. He had two outs in the fifth when Marson doubled and scored on a first-pitch single by Brantley, right after a visit to the mound by Mauer and pitching coach Rick Anderson. Cabrera’s RBI single drove in the No. 9 hitter Carrera, who walked after Marson, to give the Indians a 2-1 edge.

Valencia’s homer tied it up again in the sixth and Trevor Plouffe also went deep in the ninth, but the damage was done in between.

“We didn’t really play good at all,” Gardenhire said. “Very sporadic offense. Missed some plays, and there you have it: you lose a couple of ballgames.”

Notes

• Twins 1B Justin Morneau, recovering from neck surgery, has begun to play catch and will resume baseball activities this week.
• Mauer moved into 11th place on the team’s career lists for hits (1,049) and RBIs (486), passing Roy Smalley in both categories.