CHICAGO – Inside the weight room at Guaranteed Rate Field on Tuesday, Twins infielders brainstormed how they wanted to celebrate after victories.
Twins beat White Sox 6-5 for ninth straight win; Max Kepler scores Byron Buxton with winning run
Max Kepler drove in the go-ahead run for the second game in a row, and the Twins won nine consecutive games for the first time since 2008.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
May 1, 2024 at 1:20PM
Taking a page from NFL defenses, the group of infielders decided on posing for a photo and having the pitcher imitate a photographer. Except they apparently never communicated their plan to Jhoan Duran, who recorded his first save of the season in their 6-5 victory over the Chicago White Sox.
Duran initially attempted to join the infielders before Carlos Correa told him in Spanish to back up.
“Because he only got three outs, so he doesn’t deserve to be in the picture with the guys that played nine innings,” Correa joked afterward. Catcher Christian Vázquez knelt in front and held up a peace sign while Correa put his arms around Willi Castro and Edouard Julien.
After the Twins strung together their first nine-game winning streak since June 2008, they are at the stage where they are planning their celebrations.
“I thought we were going to do the same thing that we’ve always been doing, but Vazqy got a knee and then we said OK, I guess we’re doing it,” Correa said. “It’s going to get better, though.”
The Twins didn’t play their cleanest game Tuesday. They had two runners thrown out on the basepaths, committed an error that led to a run and saw reliever Cole Sands give up a tying homer in the eighth inning.
It still didn’t stop them.
Trailing by a run in the eighth inning, they scored twice with back-to-back singles from Correa and Trevor Larnach. With the score tied in the ninth, Byron Buxton drew a leadoff walk, moved to third on a Manuel Margot single and scored on Max Kepler’s sacrifice fly.
“When we were struggling at the beginning of the year, you almost felt like we could never come back and win games like that,” Correa said. “To be able to just bounce back and put some runs on the board, put some good at-bats together, play the way that we play. It shows a lot about where our confidence level is at.”
It’s the 11th time the Twins won nine consecutive games in franchise history. Their offense scored in a variety of ways. Willi Castro lined an RBI triple to center in the fifth inning and Kyle Farmer followed with a bloop RBI double.
Down by two runs in the sixth inning, Ryan Jeffers opened with a double and he advanced to third on a single from Kepler. On a full-count pitch to Larnach, a swing and a miss, Kepler swiped second base and Jeffers stole home without a throw to complete a double steal.
Five pitches after Jeffers scored, Kepler was thrown out after the double steal when he slipped rounding third base on an infield single. Buxton was caught stealing for the first time since Aug. 31, 2021, breaking his streak of 20 consecutive stolen bases, in the next inning.
Buxton and Kepler responded by producing the game-winning run in the ninth.
“Pretty tough bunch of guys,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I don’t feel like we are one-dimensional or two-dimensional. I feel like we can win games in all the ways.”
Like the Twins’ baserunning, their defense had its ups and downs. White Sox catcher Martín Maldonado opened the third inning with a single and tried to score from first base when Tommy Pham hit a double to the center-field wall. Castro, starting in center field, didn’t take the cleanest route to the ball, but he was fortunate he had Correa to serve as the relay man.
Maldonado, a slow runner, was a couple of steps past third base when Correa received the initial throw from Castro. Correa fired a two-hop bullet to the plate where Jeffers, the catcher, applied the tag on Maldonado’s heel during a headfirst slide.
One inning later, the White Sox loaded the bases with two outs. A run scored when first baseman Carlos Santana dropped a line drive from Pham, and he hurriedly flipped the ball to second base when no one was covering the bag for an error. It was the second unearned run allowed by the Twins during their winning streak.
“Some days it’s been really pretty,” Baldelli said. “Some days it’s been a lot of work. Tonight was definitely one of those days where it was a lot of work but no one’s shying away from that work right now.”.
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