Twins outlast Royals with HRs, double play

KANSAS CITY -- The Twins had it in the bag. Then they didn’t. Then they did again.

After taking a big gut punch in the first inning of Friday’s blowout loss, the Twins dealt some haymakers of their own on Saturday, with a trio of towering blasts capped by Miguel Sanó’s two-run, go-ahead shot that careened off the Royals Hall of Fame building beyond the left-field bleachers in the sixth inning.

If only it were that simple. Hansel Robles continued the Twins’ bullpen adventures with a chaotic ninth inning that featured a leadoff double followed by an overturned 6-3-4-6-5 double play and an actual double play on a sharp liner to shortstop, with the game ending on a runner doubled off third base. As the dust settled and the handshake line made its rounds following a 5-4 win, the Twins were still absorbing it all.

“I just said, 'God, that's how hard it's going to be to win a ballgame?'" said starting pitcher José Berríos.

“I was talking to [J.A.] Happ on the way in, and it’s like you think you’ve seen everything, and then you see something else,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

The Twins wouldn’t have gotten to that point without homers from Ryan Jeffers, Kyle Garlick and Sanó off left-hander Mike Minor. They have now gone deep in 16 consecutive games, matching the franchise record set three times -- most recently, twice in 2017. And after struggling mightily against southpaws last season, the Twins’ performance helped them take the MLB lead in homers off left-handers this season, with 29.

This game was the answer to Kansas City’s win on Thursday, when the Royals answered with a run every time the Twins mounted a rally. On Saturday, every Kansas City rally was met by a big swing from Minnesota, with the Twins reclaiming the lead immediately after losing it -- twice.

"This is who we are,” Baldelli said. “We do have a group that can drive the ball. ... I think we should be pretty pleased with the way we’ve continued to battle on and not really give in on anything, and I think that showed today.”

Jeffers continued his string of hard contact since he was called back up from Triple-A St. Paul on Monday, crushing a projected 435-foot homer on a first-pitch fastball from Minor in the second inning for his fifth hit in three games.

Garlick, on the roster for his .916 OPS against lefties entering the game, crushed a changeup over the left-field fence in the third.

And that’s before Sanó came to the plate in the sixth with the Twins down, 4-3, and rocketed a first-pitch slider a projected 449 feet out of the park. His 12 homers at Kauffman Stadium represent his most at any road ballpark.

"The at-bat before, we threw the same get-me-over slider strike one, curveball strike two, and then changeup strike three,” Minor said. “And then that time, it was a get-me-over slider, and then he hit it and was probably pretty happy with making solid contact for once.”

And though that’s how it played out, the Twins weren’t only relying on big hacks to plate their runs throughout the afternoon -- there was more sense of fight evident in how 40-year-old Nelson Cruz, of all people, stole his first base since 2018 in the third inning and stretched a hit into a hustle double in the sixth with the Twins down by a run. That put him in scoring position as the tying run before he was able to trot home anyway on Sanó’s go-ahead blast.

Baldelli couldn’t say whether that kind of aggression -- also seen in Sanó’s throw behind Dyson on the first attempted double play in the ninth -- was a reflection of added urgency, with the Twins having dropped four in a row before Saturday’s game to enter the day at 22-35.

It nearly came back to bite them twice, when Cruz followed his steal by being thrown out at home trying to score from second on Alex Kirilloff’s single in the third inning, as well as when Jorge Polanco couldn’t handle Sanó’s throw in the ninth, sending Dyson to third with the tying run.

At least this time, the Twins had just enough pop to make it all work anyway.

“Our guys have good instincts and can make those decisions out there on the field and we saw some of that today,” Baldelli said. “It’s something where you have to trust yourself as a player, not overthink things and just play the game, and I think our guys are doing that right now.”