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Late heroics lead Twins to eighth-straight win

betsy helfand, pioneer press
·3 min read

CHICAGO >> The funereal atmosphere that permeated the Twins’ clubhouse after losses earlier this month is long gone. It’s been replaced by players and coaches dancing to music that’s cranked up as loud as it can go, cracking jokes and enjoying each other’s company.

Instead of answering questions about why they only pushed across a run or two, the new talking point is a summer sausage, which has become their good-luck charm in recent days and has caught the attention of baseball fans across the country.

It’s the type of fun that comes along with an extended winning streak, one which continued with 3-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Monday night at Guaranteed Rate Field. After entering the ninth inning with just two hits, the Twins quickly pushed across a run to put them back in the win column.

It was Minnesota’s eighth straight win — a feat which it has not accomplished since 2011 — and lifted the Twins (15-13) to two games above .500 on the season.

“You just have to keep grinding,” right fielder Max Kepler said. “It’s kind of like the season started on a cold front offensively. You just have to keep battling and have each other’s backs, and stuff will go our way.”

It went their way on Monday thanks in large part to Kepler, who delivered the game-winning hit to bring home Byron Buxton. All he was trying to do, he said, was move Buxton over. Instead, he ripped a single to right to bring him in.

Buxton had doubled off John Brebbia to lead off the ninth inning and while he was initially thinking triple, he instead retreated back to second base, trusting Kepler, who has been highly productive since returning from the injured list last week, to take care of the rest.

“Before the IL stint, he wasn’t feeling himself, so to come off and do the things that he’s doing, it’s nothing new,” Buxton said. “It’s just him getting back to being comfortable and back to being himself.”

The late-inning offense from the Twins’ two longest-tenured players came after a relatively quiet day offensively against White Sox (6-23) starter Garrett Crochet and the bullpen. Crochet went five frames, retiring the last 11 batters he faced, but Minnesota did enough off of the left-hander to hang around in the game.

Like Kepler, first baseman Carlos Santana has heated up lately, and his fourth home run in the last five days — a two-run blast — tied the game in the second. As he returned back to the Twins’ dugout, he was greeted by catcher Ryan Jeffers, who threw the aforementioned sausage at him.

“It was kind of like snap your fingers and all of a sudden he was swinging it good,” manager Rocco Baldelli said of Santana. “He’s driving runs in and is making things happen. We’re winning games because of him right now.”

Him, among others.

Santana tied the game up shortly after starter Joe Ryan had gotten into some first-inning trouble.

The first three batters Ryan faced all collected hits and by the time he had gotten out of the first, the Twins were trailing by two. But Ryan was nearly untouchable after that, pitching six innings and scattering just three more hits.

He took a no-decision, keeping his team in a position to win before Minnesota turned it over to the bullpen and received scoreless performances from Brock Stewart, Griffin Jax (2-2) and Caleb Thielbar to finish off the game.

Thielbar allowed a pair of baserunners before striking out Korey Lee to end the game and record his second save.

“We really had to work. We couldn’t get much going so we just kept pitching and playing defense and giving our offense as good of a chance as we could to get back in this game,” Baldelli said. “The longer we could hold them down, the longer we could believe in ourselves that we could push a run across and we did.”

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