Pinch hitter Eduardo Escobar singled home Joe Mauer in the bottom of the eighth as the Minnesota Twins dodged the oncoming downtown deluge to beat the Yankees 4-2 at Target Field on Monday night. Escobar came off the bench to hit for Kennys Vargas, and delivered the key hit against Yankees left-handed reliever Caleb Smith, who was making his big-league debut in relief of Bryan Mitchell.
Vargas was sent back to Triple-A Rochester after the game to make room for Tuesday’s starter, Bartolo Colon. The team will still have to make a 40-man roster move prior to Tuesday’s game.
Temperatures were in the 90s during pregame and 88 degrees at first pitch, but that mark dropped nearly 20 degrees late in the game as rains moved in from the north to soak both teams over the final inning. Brandon Kintzler tossed a perfect final inning with a strikeout to lock down his AL-best 26th save — tying him with Tampa Bay’s Alex Colome until the Rays won later on Monday night.
Adalberto Mejia was solid in his first start out of the All-Star break, tossing 5.1 innings of one-run ball with four strikeouts, no walks and just five hits allowed. Mejia allowed doubles to Garrett Cooper, Austin Romine and Bradley Zimmer, but was able to avoid serious damage as he threw 76 pitches with 49 going for strikes. It was also Mejia’s first game all season in which he didn’t walk a batter.
Mejia was lifted for Tyler Duffey with one out in the sixth. Frazier doubled to lead off the inning, followed by an Aaron Judge fly out to center that moved him to third base as he represented the tying run in what was a 2-1 game at the time. Duffey got Matt Holliday to ground to a diving Ehire Adrianza at short with the infield in and followed that with a swinging strikeout of Starlin Castro to end the inning and save the lead.
That was short-lived, however, as Duffey gave up a one-out double to Chase Headley in the seventh inning, followed by Cooper’s second double of the night to knot the game at two runs apiece. Duffey recovered to fan Romine swinging before Taylor Rogers came in to get Jacoby Ellsbury to ground to Brian Dozier to halt the threat.
Rogers had to tiptoe out of danger himself in the eighth, as Frazier opened the inning with a double to left. Boos erupted from the home crowd as Judge was walked intentionally, but the plan worked perfectly as Rogers induced a 6-4-3 double play ball off the bat of Holliday. After intentionally walking Castro, Rogers was aided by a poorly placed bunt from Didi Gregorius. The ball was hit just feet from home plate, with Jason Castro springing out of his crouch and throwing the shortstop out to end the inning, and the final legitimate threat of the night for the Yankees.
Despite Judge having a quiet 0-for-3 night, he did echo Molitor’s comments before the game about being a player who isn’t just a power threat. Molitor noted that he’s a capable hitter, runner and even defender, and he showed that by throwing out Dozier at the plate to thwart the Twins in the third inning:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPMUnFxHIBs
Mitchell was making his first start of the season for the Yankees, and pitched capably for five innings before giving way to Smith. Mitchell allowed six hits, two runs (one earned) with a pair of strikeouts and walks. Smith worked the final three innings, tallying 60 pitches as he was left to soak it up — pun intended, perhaps — one night after the Yankees wrapped up a series in Boston, having played 43 innings over the span of just three days.
Smith, who spent spring training with the Chicago Cubs after being selected in the Rule 5 draft, got through the first two innings unscathed but couldn’t finish the third without suffering some damage. Even still, he managed to get five strikeouts — the most by a Yankees reliever in his debut since Jose Rijo back on April 5, 1984 according to Baseball Reference.
The Twins opened the eighth with back-to-back singles from Mauer and Miguel Sano. Max Kepler was not successful in bunting them over, and wound up striking out swinging on a full-count fastball. Escobar followed by dumping a single into left field, with Mauer charging home and Sano taking third on the throw to give the Twins a 3-2 lead. Eddie Rosario capped the scoring with a double to right field — his second of the night — to give the Twins their final lead of the night.
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