A pair of mammoth home runs in the eighth inning propelled the Twins to another come-from-behind win over the Angels — their second in as many days — by a 6-4 margin. Ricky Nolasco struggled early, but after a tough second inning gutted it out the rest of the way to complete seven innings. After allowing four runs in the second inning — and by his manager’s reconnaissance, almost being pulled from the game — Nolasco settled down and threw five shutout innings to finish his day.
The last of those innings was not without a struggle, as Nolasco quickly fanned Geovany Soto and got Cliff Pennington to ground out before allowing Yunel Escobar and Luis Ortega to reach. That set up a showdown with Mike Trout, who had missed homering by mere feet in settling for a single in the fifth inning thanks to a well-played carom by centerfielder Eddie Rosario, as well as perhaps Trout missing first base.
Manager Paul Molitor visited the mound, but elected to keep Nolasco in when his veteran righty assured him that he felt strong. Trout grounded into an unassisted forceout at third base, allowing Nolasco to dance out of danger.
With set up man Trevor May ostensibly unavailable after throwing 30-plus pitches the night before, that left Molitor in a bit of a tough spot, with Casey Fien and lefty Ryan O’Rourke — called up Saturday to replace Fernando Abad on the roster — warming, but not ideal candidates to face the reigning AL MVP runner-up. Molitor stuck with his veteran, and ultimately it paid off.
Business picked up for the Twins in the eighth, as sidearming righty Joe Smith emerged from the bullpen to take over for Cory Rasmus, who had thrown 2.2 innings of clean relief following starter Jered Weaver, who gutted through 4.1 innings while rarely going much higher than 80 mph with his fastball. Smith got Trevor Plouffe to ground out to first baseman C.J. Cron, but Oswaldo Arcia followed with a massive home run to the bullpen in left-center field, measured at 419 feet.
Byung Ho Park got in on the action as the next batter, crushing a Smith pitch 462 feet to dead center field — into the new bar area above the batter’s eye — to give the Twins back-to-back home runs to close out the scoring at 6-4.
“The wind was blowing out,” Park joked, almost sheepishly of the home run. He’s no stranger to the long ball, having hit 105 over the past two seasons with Nexen in the Korean Baseball Organization.
The Twins got to Weaver early with two runs in the first inning, and left the bases full when Rosario lined out to Trout in center. Nolasco gave the lead back two-fold the next half inning with a two-run double by Pennington and a two-run single by Escobar, who was thrown out at second base on the play by John Ryan Murphy. Nolasco got out of the inning by striking Trout out looking, and after the game Molitor strongly suggested that it was Trout or bust for his 33-year-old right hander. “I had [Michael] Tonkin ready,” Molitor said in his postgame press conference.
But that wrapped up the scoring for the Angels, and Nolasco teamed up with Ryan Pressly (1-0) and Kevin Jepsen (S, 2) to shut the Halos out for the final seven innings.
The Twins tacked on single runs in the third and fifth innings, as Trevor Plouffe hit a 379-foot home run to bring the deficit down to 4-3. In the fifth, Joe Mauer narrowly missed a home run to left field, but moved Brian Dozier — who had singled and stolen second — to third. Plouffe doubled deep to left field to score Dozier and move Miguel Sano to third base before Rasmus came on to whiff Arcia and dance out of danger with the game tied at four.
