The Minnesota Twins battled back from a pair of deficits to eventually take down the visiting Tampa Bay Rays 6-4 in front of a crowd of 20,193 fans at Target Field on Thursday night. The club banged out a season-high 15 hits, and the win improved the Twins to 5-2 against the Rays since the start of last season. This marked the club’s fifth win in the last eight games, and also snapped a three-game losing skid.
The Twins took the lead for good in the sixth inning as Brian Dozier was hit by an Erasmo Ramirez pitch with the bases loaded, scoring Kurt Suzuki. That made Taylor Rogers (1-0) a winner for the first time in his big league career, as he worked two clean innings with a pair of strikeouts in relief of spot starter Phil Hughes. “I’m just trying to throw up zeroes,” Rogers said of his early-career experience. “Keep it simple and consistent.”
The Twins started the game off with a bang, as leadoff hitter Eduardo Nunez drove a ball deep to right field. The ball bounced off the glove of right fielder Brandon Guyer on a leaping effort, and trickled into the right field corner. Nunez cruised into third base and appeared to slow down as he reached the bag, but third base coach Gene Glynn gave him the go-ahead and Nunez streaked home, sliding head-first to land on the plate with a wide grin and a 1-0 lead for the Twins.
“I never thought about a homer,” Nunez said of his trip around the bases. “I was looking for third right away…and I saw (Glynn) say to keep going and I thought “Oh my God! I have to get going!””
That was the first Twins inside-the-park home run in Target Field history, and the club’s first since Suzuki did so in San Diego on May 20, 2014. Nunez also said it was the first of his career — at any level.
Hughes opened the game with a pair of relatively clean innings, as the only damage done was a Logan Morrison walk to start the second inning. Hughes got into trouble in the third inning in what amounted to “death by singles.” The Rays plated a pair of runs in the inning with singles from Curt Casali, Brad Miller, Evan Longoria and Morrison. The Rays led 2-1 at the end of the frame.
The Twins re-took the lead with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth. Robbie Grossman led the inning off with a single to center and advanced to second on a Byung Ho Park walk. Max Kepler — in just his second game with the club since his recall — doubled into the right field corner to score Grossman, and Park scored on a sacrifice fly from Byron Buxton.
The lead was short-lived, as Miller singled to left to lead off the fifth, and took second when Grossman mishandled the ball. It mattered little, as Longoria followed that up with a 393-foot blast into the left field stands to give the Rays a 4-3 lead. That was the end of the night for Hughes, who gave way to Rogers after throwing just 64 pitches (46 strikes). Manager Paul Molitor said after the game that Hughes wasn’t on a pitch count of any type, but what he was watching his righty closely going into that inning and would have someone ready if he got into trouble.
“The stuff wasn’t good,” Hughes diagnosed after the game. “It’s one of those things where if you don’t have good stuff and leave the ball over the plate, stuff like that’s going to happen. Not great.”
The Twins chipped away with single runs in the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Dozier hit his sixth home run of the year in the fifth inning off Rays starter Matt Moore, and was at the plate in the sixth to take the plunking that plated Suzuki. Suzuki had picked up third base on a hit-and-run with Buxton — an odd combination but you can’t argue with the result.
The Twins scored their final run in the seventh as Park doubled deep into the right field corner against Rays lefty Xavier Cedeno, and scampered home on a Kepler single. Ryan Pressly, Brandon Kintzler and Kevin Jepsen (S, 7) combined to face the minimum over the last three innings to seal the win.
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Up Next – RHP Ricky Nolasco (2-3, 5.28) vs. RHP Jake Odorizzi (2-3, 3.36) – 7:10 PM Friday
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Notes and Quotes
- Park had three hits in the game — all off left-handed pitchers. Park came into the game just 3-for-25 against lefties on the season (.120/.267/.240).
- Kintzler induced a groundball double play off the bat of Corey Dickerson in the eighth inning. It was his second grounder of the inning, and vaulted his season rate to 70.6 percent. That places him among baseball’s top five in groundball rate among pitchers who’ve thrown at least 10 innings.
- The Longoria home run off Hughes was the 11th allowed by the Twins righty — the most on the team.
- Nunez’ inside-the-park home run was the 50th in Twins history. Nunez (2-for-5) is now hitting .331/.358/.509 on the season in 180 plate appearances.
- Nunez on the meaning behind the smile on his face as he slid across home: “I made it. I was so tired. I didn’t want to run any more at that point.”
- Nunez on if he had any other inside-the-park home runs at any level: “No. Never in my life. Not even close!”
- Rogers on his first-win ‘treatment’ from the team: “Yeah, I got a little bit. It’s fun. It was a good experience and something I’ll never forget. It was tomato sauce, so it was a little different. It was a fun night.”
- Rogers on if he realized he was in line for his first big league win: “It was pretty quiet. Kind of like a no-hitter type of things where nobody wants to say anything. When we scored there I knew I was in line for it and just didn’t want to jinx it.”
- Hughes on if he can work on things mechanically to regain his form: “Well I’m going to try. I have to explore every avenue to try figure out what I can do to be better, because I haven’t been so far.”
- Hughes on the home run pitch: “It was just a cutter to Longoria that kind of leaked out over the plate, and he did what he does with those. I have to figure out what’s going on and have to be better.”