Twins scrape past White Sox 6-5 with late home runs, bloop double

You never know what it will take to turn around a game, to wake up the offense, to pull off a dramatic walk-off victory.

Trevor Larnach, for instance, launched a 433-foot home run onto the right-field plaza in the eighth inning to pull the Twins within a run. Byron Buxton led off the ninth by smashing the hardest-hit ball of the night and his hardest of the season, 110.5-mph off his bat, just over the left-field wall to tie the game. Alex Kirilloff shook off a four-strikeout night and stroked a fastball at the bottom of the zone into right field for the walk-off winner.

And the critical hit to set up that rally, and ultimately the Twins’ 6-5 victory over the White Sox?

“That’s a sand wedge, if you’re wondering,” Ryan Jeffers said of his sky-high popup, a lightly hit 220-foot … double? “Pretty clutch,” Jeffers joked of the ball that fell a couple inches inside the left-field foul line.

Yes, there’s nothing wrong with the Twins that the last-place 3-20 White Sox can’t turn around for them. One night after victimizing the Sox for their most lopsided win of the season so far, the Twins on Tuesday earned their most dramatic victory, too.

“How about that win? That’s a nice one,” said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, whose team hasn’t had much to celebrate in the season’s first four weeks. “If you want to be successful, you’ve got to find ways to win games that are really not going your way, that are stressing you in a tough fashion.”

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He means, a game in which Chicago righthander Erick Fedde retires the final 16 hitters he faced, who strikes out a career-high 11 Twins, who leaves the tiny crowd of 11,223 in Target Field more interested in watching the Timberwolves game on the concourse TVs.

Once Fedde left with a 3-1 lead, though, the Twins got tough on the Chicago bullpen, rallying for one run in the seventh, two in the eighth (after the White Sox had added two more of their own) and the decisive two runs in the ninth.

“It didn’t start the way we wanted it to, but it makes us that much better to come from where we are to pull out these types of wins,” said Buxton, homerless this season until he cracked Steven Wilson’s second pitch, a belt-high fastball in the middle of the zone, straight down the left-field line. “Just kind of went up there with my aggressive approach. Don’t try to do too much, but also don’t let him get that strike over.”

Wilson shook off the tying run and retired Willi Castro, but then walked Carlos Santana, who had driven in a run — his first at Target Field this year — with a seventh-inning single. That brought up Jeffers, pinch hitting for Kyle Farmer, and he dumped a perfectly placed popup where no one could reach it.

Count Jeffers among the surprised. “I thought it headed was way into the seats.” But it stayed fair, and Santana hustled to third base, Jeffers to second.

BOXSCORE: Twins 6, Chicago White Sox 5

After Christian Vázquez struck out for the second out, Kirilloff came up, trying to put a four-strikeout night behind him. He worked the count full, then grounded a low fastball into right field, scoring pinch runner Austin Martin with the winning run.

Kirilloff raced around the bases as teammates chased him to celebrate.

“It’s awesome. Having an immediate impact like that is pretty cool, too,” Kirilloff said.

So why’d he run? “I was excited,” he said. “My legs were fresh from not running during the game, so I wanted to use them.”