Twins use seven-run fourth inning to rout Padres 11-4 in series finale

SAN DIEGO – No team had given up game-changing runs quicker than the Twins this week. On Wednesday, nobody scored them faster than the Twins, either.

The Twins wrapped up a weeklong road trip by victimizing the Padres the same way the Rangers and Padres had done to them. In the span of 12 pitches during the fourth inning, the Twins strung together an amazing seven consecutive hits and scored seven runs, all they would need in what ended up an 11-4 victory at Petco Park.

The victory ended the Twins’ discouraging three-game losing streak, ended the trip with a 4-3 record and trimmed a game off the Guardians’ AL Central lead, now down to 2½ games.

“It’s so much easier to hit when you’re continually hitting, guy after guy, and I feel like everybody was kind of rolling that inning,” said Matt Wallner, who capped the big inning with a 410-foot blast into the right-field stands, scoring three runs. “It just gives us a good feeling ending the road trip” that way.

Wallner’s homer came on the fourth pitch of his at-bat against Padres starter Matt Waldron, which made Wallner the overly patient hitter during that rally. The eruption began with Edouard Julien smacking a first-pitch knuckleball into right field for a single, followed by a first-pitch single by Christian Vázquez, and a second-pitch double into the left-field corner, scoring both runners.

Then came a first-pitch RBI double by Willi Castro, a second-pitch single by Trevor Larnach and a first-pitch run-scoring single by Royce Lewis, all leading up to Wallner’s rocket into the seats.

Twelve pitches. Seven runs. It was like a fast-breaking basketball team building a blowout.

“Some days you have to do that. You have to be ready to hit,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Sometimes pitchers are out of the zone and you don’t want to help them. But on the days where they’re trying to get ahead and throw a lot of strikes early, there’s nothing wrong with being on those pitches.”

The Twins reeled off 18 hits on the day, at least one in every inning. Larnach and Julien collected four hits apiece, Castro reached base four times with a double, a single, a walk and a hit-by-pitch, and Martin had two doubles and three RBI.

Only once this season have they had more hits, racking up 24 against the Rockies in June — and they had Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton in their lineup that day. That’s what made this finale so remarkable — the Twins had a winning road trip without two of their biggest contributors.

“One through nine in the lineup today looked good,” Wallner said. “It’s awesome having depth and being able to win, even without those superstars. It’s awesome.”

Added Baldelli, “It kind of stamps and further emphasizes the fact that we want our players back and healthy — but whoever we have, and we don’t care who we’re facing, we can go out and win games.”

Simeon Woods Richardson was the grateful recipient of all the support, surviving a 29-pitch first inning to leave the bases loaded and no runs across. He went five innings, giving up only a solo home run to former Twins teammate Donovan Solano. The Padres managed three runs against reliever Ronny Henriquez in the eighth, two of them scoring on a Jackson Merrill homer.

And in the ninth, Steven Okert recorded the final three outs in order, one day after surrendering an eighth-inning lead.

“It definitely feels a lot nicer than last night,” Okert said. “Now I won’t have to sit on [that loss] tonight and tomorrow, and I can just get going and start preparing for the next series.”

Same for the rest of the Twins. “A fantastic way to come back,” Baldelli said.