Twins can't keep up with Cardinals despite another HR outburst

MINNEAPOLIS -- The ball was flying out of Target Field for the second straight game. Unfortunately for the Twins, the visiting Cardinals came out on top of Saturday’s slugfest.

Byron Buxton, Royce Lewis and Luke Keaschall homered for the Twins, but it wasn’t enough to overcome four St. Louis longballs in a 9-6 loss.

It was the eighth time this season that the Twins have hit at least three home runs in a game, and four of them have come in the past nine days:

• June 4 vs. Kansas City: Buxton, Kody Clemens (2) and Victor Caratini
• June 9 at Detroit: Buxton, Josh Bell, Brooks Lee, Clemens
• June 12 vs. St. Louis: Buxton, Clemens, Royce Lewis, Lee
• June 13 vs. St. Louis: Buxton, Lewis, Keaschall

“I think we knew the ability to hit the ball out of the ballpark was going to come when the weather warmed up here. I think we’ve seen it on both sides, unfortunately,” Twins manager Derek Shelton said. “But good swings. We’re taking aggressive swings.”

Power can be a tricky thing in baseball -- it’s often contagious in both slump and hot-streak forms. Take Buxton, for example. He didn’t hit his first 2026 home run until April 13, the Twins’ 15th game of the season. His homer on Saturday was his 22nd. It left him two behind Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber and the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez for the most in the Major Leagues this year.

Buxton also joined select company in Minnesota with his leadoff homer to straightaway center field in the fourth inning. That gave him 22 home runs in his past 46 games. Only three other players in Twins/Senators history have ever hit at least 22 homers in 46 games. The others? Nelson Cruz in 2019, Brian Dozier in 2016 and Harmon Killebrew in 1964.

“Buck is doing what he always does, and everyone's just trying to chase him,” said Kody Clemens, whose three-run homer on Friday was his 10th of the year, leaving him more than halfway to his career high of 19, set last season.

“Homers are great. I think in today's world, the pitching is so good that, if you have a team that can hit balls out of the ballpark, it's a massive advantage,” Clemens said. “It's pretty rare to see the single-single-single to score runs nowadays. So I'm loving how everyone's starting to lift the ball and get in the air.

“The weather, obviously, is a big thing,” he added. “In April, it's pretty hard to get the ball out of the field. I think guys are just starting to get in their swings and getting better pitches to hit.”

The Twins used their latest power surge to come back from their latest early deficit. The Cardinals took a 4-0 lead off Connor Prielipp after two innings. But solo shots by Buxton and Lewis cut the lead in half in the fourth, and Keaschall’s line drive in the fifth cleared the fence near the left-field foul pole, a two-run blast that tied the game.

The Cardinals found their own power surge with two outs in the seventh, as Iván Herrera and Jordan Walker went deep back to back off reliever Justin Lawrence. Two more singles followed before Travis Adams came on and gave up Blaze Jordan’s first Major League homer, a three-run blast to deep left-center for a 9-4 lead.

The Twins didn’t go quietly, however. Clemens’ RBI single in the eighth trimmed the deficit to four, and they loaded the bases with nobody out in the ninth before reliever Riley O’Brien settled down and retired the next three hitters to close it out.

“You’ve got to give our offense credit, because they’re playing from behind a lot, and they continue to fight,” Shelton said. “[Friday] night, we continued to fight. Tonight we brought the tying run to the plate after being down multiple times. So they continue to grind, and I give them a lot of credit for that.”