Clemens stars all over the diamond as Twins hold off A's

MINNEAPOLIS -- Kody Clemens gave the Twins a jolt. Then he gave them a couple of sighs of relief. Then he finished the whole thing off.

Clemens was in the middle of just about everything good that happened for Minnesota on Sunday. He tripled twice among three base hits, drove in a run, scored twice, and made the defensive play of the game as Minnesota held on for a more-difficult-than-it-should’ve-been 11-8 win over the Athletics at Target Field on Sunday.

He even made the final putout of the game at first base, having moved there from the outfield an inning earlier.

The result was another series win for a Twins team that keeps hanging around in the postseason race. Minnesota has emerged from a four-game slide right after the All-Star break to win four out of five and is back within one game of the final American League Wild Card spot.

“Collectively, as a group, we don’t panic,” Clemens said. “We don’t feel any panic there. It’s just how baseball goes. You’re not going to win them all. Sometimes, the losses come together, and that’s just how the game is. It’s a long season. You just have to keep going game by game.”

The Twins scored first against A’s starter Jeffrey Springs when Royce Lewis beat out a potential double-play ball, bringing Clemens to the plate with one out and a 1-0 lead. He drilled a deep drive to center, scoring Lewis and motoring all the way to third. When shortstop Alika Williams’ relay skipped away, Clemens scored, and starter Connor Prielipp had some wiggle room in his return from the injured list.

Prielipp pitched brilliantly and departed with a seven-run lead, and for a good while it looked like the home team was headed for a laugher. But the A’s rallied against the Twins’ bullpen -- with help from a ball apparently lost in the sun -- to pull within two runs in the seventh before Clemens provided a giant exhale for his teammates and the assembled crowd at the ballpark on a hot afternoon.

With the lead down to 8-6 and a runner on second in the seventh inning, Jacob Wilson hit a liner to right field. Clemens, who plays all over the field but not all that often in right field, made an impressive full-extension diving catch to get out of an inning that was threatening to go from bad to catastrophic. With the dangerous Nick Kurtz on deck, it was a critical play.

“Huge,” said shortstop Ryan Kreidler, who had two doubles and a triple. “The middle of their order is no joke. … The more times they get to see our arms, probably the better off they’re going to be. So, Kody put a stop to that inning. He’s done a really good job in the outfield.”

Then in the bottom of that same frame, Clemens extended the lead. He lined a one-out triple – his second triple of the game – and scored on a sacrifice fly to provide some breathing room.

And yet still this chaotic game had more twists left. The Twins stretched the lead to 11-6 in the eighth, seemingly putting it out of reach, before the Athletics rallied one more time in the ninth. With a runner on second, the lead back down to three runs, and Wilson at the plate once again, Clemens scooped up a grounder and took it himself, finishing off a hard-earned win on a sweltering day.

“The one thing we’ve seen about Kody Clemens is, regardless of where we put him, he has done a really good job defensively,” manager Derek Shelton said. “The last play of the game, getting to the bag. But the catch, to be able to leave his feet there, it’s a big moment, and we needed a good defensive play there and he gave us one.”