Twins beat Tampa Bay 4-3 behind home runs from Edouard Julien, Matt Wallner

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. – As disappointing as things appeared for the Twins with injuries piling up and the club playing one of its worst stretches of the season during a playoff race, they still have Pablo López available to pitch every five or six days.

López gave up a run for the first time in his last four starts, halting a 23⅓-inning scoreless streak, but Edouard Julien and Matt Wallner homered for an early lead and that was enough in a 4-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday. The Twins salvaged a split in their four-game series at Tropicana Field.

Since the All-Star break, López has posted a 6-1 record and a 2.16 ERA in nine starts.

“The team picked me up plenty of times in the first half when I wasn’t at my best or my sharpest,” López said. “It’s one of those things that you have to take it personal. We were down in the series, and I knew I had an opportunity to come out here and do it for my guys, do it for my teammates. They keep doing it for me.”

The Twins, who sit four games behind Cleveland in the American League Central standings, hold a half-game lead over idle Kansas City for the second wild-card spot ahead of their three-game series against the Royals this weekend.

Their veteran reinforcements haven’t arrived. Carlos Correa hasn’t played in nearly two months and there is no timetable for his return. Byron Buxton is dealing with more hip pain. Max Kepler went on the injured list before Thursday’s game. Chris Paddack may not return this year.

When the Twins badly needed a spark, López allowed three runs and seven hits in 6⅔ innings while striking out nine.

“As well as he’s been throwing the ball, this may have been some of his best stuff we’ve literally seen in two years,” Twins bench coach Jayce Tingler said. López threw three fastballs above 98 mph, the fastest pitches in his career, and Rays hitters whiffed on 70% of their swings against his sweeper.

López’s outing ended, bizarrely, after a lengthy replay review. Yandy Díaz drove in a run with a line drive down the right-field line. Wallner, attempting to hold Díaz to a single, fielded the ball at a full sprint and his momentum carried him over a side wall where he tumbled head-first out of play.

“Evidently not much awareness of where the wall is,” Wallner deadpanned.

Díaz kept running to third base, but the umpiring crew ruled it was a ground-rule double. More than 10 minutes elapsed between the end of the play and the conclusion of a replay review to decide whether Díaz should be stationed at second or third base.

“I probably threw like 14 pitches to stay loose, just stay engaged,” said López, who had the longest scoreless streak by a Twins pitcher since Tyler Duffey’s 24⅓-inning streak in 2019. “I was already a little frustrated because one of the few fastballs I yanked went for an RBI double.”

After the review determined Díaz must remain at second base, manager Rocco Baldelli opted to bring Griffin Jax out of the bullpen. Jax, who spent part of the delay jogging in the bullpen, induced an inning-ending groundout on his first pitch.

Jax pitched multiple innings for only the second time this year, pitching around a two-out triple in the eighth inning. Jhoan Duran earned the save with a clean ninth inning, though first baseman Carlos Santana had an injury scare on a tag for the final out.

The Twins, missing some key hitters, have struggled giving their pitchers early leads. They entered Thursday with 31 runs in their previous 10 games, and they scored only 12 runs before the seventh inning.

“We all have a job to try to help the team win, right?” Julien said. “If everybody does that, I think we’re going to win some games. It don’t matter who it is. It’s the next man up, right? Of course, we miss those guys, but at the end of the day, we all can play.”

After back-to-back singles from Jose Miranda and Carlos Santana to begin the second inning, Julien crushed a first-pitch splitter that hung over the middle of the plate for a three-run homer, a no-doubter that landed halfway up the right-field seats. It was Julien’s first homer in the big leagues since a two-homer game on April 25.

One inning later, Wallner lofted a solo homer to right field when Rays starter Taj Bradley gave him a down-the-middle fastball in a 2-0 count.