MINNEAPOLIS — Saturday was a good day for the Guardians on an organizational level.

The big-league team won a split doubleheader from the Twins to extend their winning streak to 10 games. The two wins pushed them to within one game of the first-place Tigers in the AL Central and tied them with Houston for the third wild card spot with seven games to player.

At Triple-A Columbus, meanwhile, Daniel Espino took the mound in an official game for the first time since April of 2022.

Guardians’ players, coaches and executives at Target Field and throughout the organization watched Espino’s short, but emotional appearance for the Clippers against Omaha on TV.

“He did great,” said Joe Torres, Guardians assistant pitch coach. “He was hitting 97 mph to 98 mph. It was emotional, he had tears in his eyes when he came off the mound.”

Cleveland used its No.1 pick in 2019 to draft Espino out of Georgia Premier Academy. He has not pitched in a game in more than three years because of two major operations on his right shoulder and a knee injury.

“He’s a great kid on an off the field,” said Torres. “He lost his father during his rehab, but his mom came from Panama to see him pitch. He’s a resilient kid.

“He showed good command for not pitching in a game for so long. He gave up a couple of soft hits.”

Espino, 24, was on a 25-pitch or one-inning limit. He went two-thirds of an inning, allowing three runs on three hits with one strikeout.

“The excitement throughout the organization to see Daniel, being the person that he is, do that was incredible,” said Eric Binder, Guardians assistant GM. “Everyone was watching here (Target Field) and throughout the organization.

“He worked his tail off in Arizona to be in the position to pitch in a game at the tail end of this season. He was able to accomplish that.”

Espino, with the Triple-A season coming to an end, will make his next appearance in the Arizona Fall League.

The Guardians prospects will play for Surprise Saguaros in the AFL. Michael Peoples, the Guardians’ minor league pitching coordinator, will be the pitching coach for Surprise.

“We’ll be able to control Daniel’s calendar,” said Binder. “Our expectaction is that he’ll be pitching every fifth or sixth day in a rotation turn. But his workload has only been built up to one inning or 30 pitches.

“So he won’t be built up as a starter in the Fall League. We want to get him into the offseason heathly and then reset for next spring training.”

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