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Twins win 12th straight, matching second-longest streak in club history

betsy helfand, pioneer press
·2 min read

With the way the Twins have been playing, it’s starting to feel like they will inevitably find a way to win.

It’s only a question of how.

Saturday, it was with some small ball and solid defense in support of six strong innings from ace Pablo López. Their combined efforts led the Twins to a 3-1 win over the Red Sox on Saturday afternoon at Target Field. It was their 12th straight victory, tying the second-longest winning streak in club history, which was set in 1980.

While much of the winning streak has been supercharged by the Twins’ offense, the last couple days have been marked by strong performances by their starting pitchers.

Though certainly not as dominant as Chris Paddack the night before, López did more than enough on Saturday to hold up his part of the bargain.

A laborious first inning resulted in one run for the Red Sox, but they were unable to get to López again. He went six innings, striking out eight and giving up five hits — but just three in the final five innings of his start.

The Twins trailed just briefly, as Jose Miranda, who was hit by a pitch, came around to score on a Carlos Correa ground ball to third in the bottom of the first inning.

Max Kepler’s second home run of the year sailed out to right-center field in the fourth inning and in the sixth, Willi Castro, who is on a 10-game hitting streak, singled to lead off the inning, advanced on a pair of wild pitches and came around to score on a Correa sacrifice fly to deep center field.

The game got tense in the seventh inning upon Jorge Alcala’s entrance. Alcala was bailed out when the first batter of the inning hit a ball off the wall in right field that Kepler played perfectly, throwing out the running trying to reach second.

But he got into some trouble later in the inning and after Steven Okert entered to finish off the inning, he walked the first batter he faced before getting Red Sox star Rafael Devers to swing at strike three.

After that, Jhoan Duran entered to face the heart of the order in the eighth and Cole Sands tossed a 1-2-3 inning in the ninth, sending the Twins into another celebration.

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