MINNEAPOLIS -- Twins manager Derek Shelton loves to say that his team fights for all 27 outs. Never has that been more true than Thursday.
Held to a single hit over the first 8 2/3 innings, Minnesota nonetheless assembled a seemingly impossible comeback against the Royals in the ninth inning Thursday, getting up off the mat to stun Kansas City, 4-3, in the rubber game of a three-game series at Target Field.
Kody Clemens finished it off with the 34th known “ultimate grand slam” since 1910, and the first ever by a Twins player. It's also the first on record (since complete pitch-tracking data in 2000) to have come on an 0-2 count.
Ryan Jeffers, who had the only hit entering the ninth, started the rally when he was hit by a Lucas Erceg pitch with two outs. Royce Lewis dropped a single into shallow center field, and Josh Bell kept it going with a walk.
That brought up Clemens, and the Royals went to lefty Matt Strahm to counter the left-handed hitter. That didn’t stop Clemens, who ended the game and sent the Twins to one of their happiest flights in quite some time.
Royals starter Noah Cameron had been absolutely dominant, taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning and facing the minimum through five. But the Kansas City bullpen couldn’t hold it, and the never say die Twins pulled off perhaps the year’s most unlikely win -- two days after overcoming a deficit in the ninth to walk-off the Royals on Tuesday.