MINNEAPOLIS – Sometimes all it takes is one trigger, one moment, to start a hot streak. Maybe Kody Clemens and Ryan Jeffers provided that trigger on Monday night in an 11-1 Twins win over the Tigers.
With one out in the fifth inning and Luke Keaschall on second base, Clemens worked a 12-pitch walk against the hard-throwing Jackson Jobe. After falling behind 1-2, Clemens battled Jobe through nine more pitches, seeing plenty of his fastball as well as all three of his offspeed pitches to reach base.
That brought up Jeffers, who hadn’t homered in the first 30 days of August. The catcher took a slider out of the zone, fouled off a fastball in, and then pummeled a 97.3 mph four-seamer up above the strike zone for a three-run homer. The ball traveled a Statcast-projected 420 feet to left-center field, stretching a two-run Twins lead to a five-run cushion, and they never looked back.
The Twins kept adding on after that, reversing a recent trend of not scoring in the later innings, and Jeffers added a second homer of the night and the month in the seventh. Clemens had a sacrifice fly and a solo homer in the game as well.
That was more than enough for Taj Bradley, who enjoyed his best start in more than a month with seven innings of one-run ball. Bradley struck out nine and allowed four hits, looking very much like the pitcher who flashed ace form for much of the early part of the season.
The win gave Minnesota back to back victories for the first time since Aug. 18-19. The Twins had lost 10 out of 15 games prior to Monday’s series opener against Detroit. They pulled within 3 1/2 games of Cleveland for the third American League Wild Card spot.