Twins demolish Yankees 11-2, opening with nine-run first inning, three straight home runs

NEW YORK — The Twins' numbers at Yankee Stadium are so lopsided, they've long since plunged into absurdity. So when confronted with comedy like their 2-16 record in this ballpark since 2017, or their 38-98 futility in the past two decades — not to mention their 13 consecutive postseason losses — what's a long-suffering visitor to do?

Fight farce with folly.

The Twins unleashed one of the most implausible, unthinkable innings in their history on Thursday, sending 13 batters to the plate, knocking four baseballs off the outfield walls and three more over them, and scoring nine runs, the biggest, loudest inning they've had in New York in their 62 seasons. They added a couple more runs just because they could, and walked away with an 11-2 victory, their biggest here in 32 years.

"I told Cole Sands before the game, 'Hey, get ready to pitch today because we're going to score 10 runs.' I didn't expect them all to come in the first inning," joked Carlos Correa, who followed Michael A. Taylor's and Edouard Julien's back-to-back home runs with a homer of his own. "I mean, that was crazy. We had a blast doing that. It was a lot of fun."

Armed with a touchdown-and-a-safety lead, Joe Ryan mowed down Yankee hitters as if they were blindfolded. Yes, the Twins "wasted" Ryan's superb start, but not in the usual sense. They simply didn't need such a shutdown.

Ryan gave up a measly three hits when he had room for three dozen, and just one run when he could have served up batting practice and won. He walked nobody and struck out 10, earning his third straight victory this year and reducing his ERA to just 2.84.

"That's how it's done. He showed us the book on how to pitch with a lead," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said.

"He really filled the zone up and [we] made the plays behind him. That's what you want."

Yankees rookie Jhony Brito, the unfortunate recipient of nine batters worth of Twins wrath? His ERA ballooned from 0.90 to 6.75 after facing just nine batters. And another rookie started it all.

Edouard Julien, batting leadoff in just his second big-league game, got things going by one-hopping a Brito fastball off the right-field wall, his first career hit.

Then he beat shortstop Anthony Volpe's throw to second on Correa's infield hit, though it took replay to overturn the initial out call. He moved to third when Byron Buxton walked, and when Trevor Larnach followed with a sacrifice fly, Julien scored the first run in what seemed to be a fairly ordinary inning.

"He's a great bat, man. Great addition to the lineup," Correa gushed. "Rocco showed me the lineup today, said we're going to put Julien leadoff. I said, 'I love it.' ... He walks. He barrels the ball and you can't ask anything else from the leadoff guy."

And from that point, things got weird fast. Jose Miranda doubled both runners home, Donovan Solano doubled, too, and after a Nick Gordon ground out, so did Christian Vázquez, each ball sailing over Yankee outfielders and adding to the lead.

Then came the heavy artillery: Taylor bashed a home run to straightaway center, knocking out Brito. Julien greeted reliever Colten Brewer with his first career home run, going opposite field to the seats in left field.

And Correa made it the Twins' first back-to-back-to-back blasts since last June in Target Field against, yep, the Yankees, with his first homer of the year.

"I've never been part of a first inning like that, I don't think, on either side," Baldelli marveled. "Virtually everyone in the lineup followed with a good plan and executed some good at-bats. That's a heck of a head start. It was beautiful."

Vázquez doubled again in the third inning, and Taylor homered again, the third multihomer game of his career and first since 2017.

The Yankees countered with a pair of Anthony Rizzo solo home runs, but couldn't come close to preventing the Twins from winning the opener of a series at Yankee Stadium for the first time since 2014.

"It was all kind of surreal," said Taylor, a newcomer to the Twins' Yankee jinx. "You don't have innings like that very often. So we had really good energy."