During their eight-game losing skid against the New York Yankees, the Minnesota Twins had found numerous ways to lose late leads: allowing three home runs to Alex Rodriguez last July, surrendering a go-ahead grand slam to Rodriguez in September and most recently, blowing a 4-0 seventh-inning advantage on Saturday.
Despite flirting with a disastrous déjà vu as Rodriguez represented the tying run in the eighth, the Twins eventually ended the Yankees’ hijinks on Sunday with a 7-4 victory, using a four-run sixth inning to get Ervin Santana (2-7) his second win of the season.
The Twins avoided being swept at home by the Yankees in a four-game series for the second time in four years (July 1-4, 2013). It was their first win against the Bronx Bombers since a 10-1 drubbing last July 24. “Get a good start against a good team and hopefully that’ll get you going,” said manager Paul Molitor.
Correct. The #MNTwins haven’t won a home series against New York since April of 2006. https://t.co/fTG1CNQyA9
— Sam Ekstrom (@SamEkstrom) June 19, 2016
Trailing 2-0 in the fifth inning, Twins rookie Max Kepler launched his second career home run into the right field flowerbed, which seemed to ignite the Twins. They went on to bat eight men in the sixth inning with Eduardo Escobar tripling in two men on one of the game’s defining plays. Down by a run with runners on the corners, Escobar’s bloop down the right field line scored Brian Dozier easily from third, while Trevor Plouffe lumbered around from first base and got a green light from third base coach Gene Glynn to go for home.
Plouffe was initially called out, but replay revealed a savvy slide in which Plouffe dodged the glove of catcher Brian McCann and grazed the plate with his left hand. “Initially I thought I was safe,” said Plouffe. “I didn’t know if he caught my jersey or something like that, but I didn’t feel him tag me. I try not to do that, like point and say ‘Challenge it’ because I see guys do that all the time and they’re out, so I try not to, but I couldn’t help myself there.”
“Pretty athletic slide,” Molitor said. “You can determine how big of an athlete he is, but that was a nice slide.”
Minnesota scored two more runs in the sixth once starter Nathan Eovaldi (6-4) got yanked and hard-throwing reliever Dellin Betances entered the game. Kepler added his second RBI of the day with a bloop single to center off Betances, then Kurt Suzuki continued his nice June by driving in Kepler with a hard double to left.
Brian Dozier added an insurance run in the seventh, making it 6-2 with a loud home run off the facing of the second deck in left field, his eighth of the year.
The Twins got a big lift from the right-handed Santana, who went 36 days between wins. He pitched 7.1 innings, his second-longest start of the year, struck out four and — most impressively — walked none for the third consecutive game. “Throwing strikes,” said Santana after jokingly knocking on the wood of his locker. “Getting the ball down.”
For a while, it appeared as if Santana was headed for his sixth straight loss. The Yankees held a 2-0 lead at the game’s halfway point thanks to a Brian McCann home run and a Rodriguez RBI single, but Santana never faced more than four men in an inning and retired 11 of 13 before an Ike Davis single forced him out with 104 pitches in the seventh.
As nightmares of past collapses flashed through the minds of the 29,553 in attendance, Rogers fanned Beltran
The Twins’ bullpen, which had faltered twice in the series already, got off to a rough start in the eighth inning. After replacing Santana, reliever Taylor Rogers immediately committed a throwing error to allow Jacoby Ellsbury to reach. Brett Gardner then rolled a grounder through the legs of Trevor Plouffe to make the score 6-3 and bring the duo of Carlos Beltran and Alex Rodriguez to the plate representing the tying run.
As nightmares of past collapses flashed through the minds of the 29,553 in attendance, Rogers fanned Beltran for the second out, and right-hander Brandon Kintzler came on to strike out Rodriguez swinging on a fastball.
Danny Santana added some insurance with an RBI single in the eighth to make it 7-3. Kintzler stayed in to pitch the ninth inning and gave up McCann’s second home run but nothing more as the Twins got to celebrate on Father’s Day.
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UP NEXT: The Twins start an interleague series with Philadelphia on Tuesday after a day off.
