The Twins beat the New York Yankees on Saturday 7-3, which is all fine and well except that the baseball world couldn’t help but notice it was the Twins’ first win in the Bronx in almost three years.
Their last win there came on June 26, 2016, a year that will live in infamy for Twins fans because the team lost 103 games that season.
But on that June day, before 38,000 fans, Tyler Duffey pitched the game of his life. He was backed by six home runs to beat the Yankees, 7-1. Duffey is still on the Twins’ 40-man roster.
That afternoon Duffey struck out eight over eight innings and allowed only two hits and one earned run. While he went to work on the mound, the Twins went to work with their bats. Hitting home runs that day were Danny Santana, Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe, Max Kepler, Eduardo Nunez and Juan Centeno.
Michael Pineda, who spent four seasons with the Yankees, gets the ball Sunday. He needs a decent outing after two previous duds.
Extra innings…
-Jake Odorizzi had another solid start on Saturday. He struck out eight over six innings and improved to 4-2 with an ERA of 2.78. Odorizzi, Perez and Berrios are carrying the team. Now, we just need Gibson and Pineda to find their form.
-The Twins didn’t hit six home runs on Saturday, but they still got long balls from Nelson Cruz, Mitch Garver and C.J. Cron. Garver hit leadoff and led the way with three hits. In all, the Twins scored seven runs on 12 hits.
-The Yankees lead the American League in attendance at 633,170 through Friday, according to Baseball-Reference.com. The Twins are ninth at 269,943. It really needs to warm up in Twins land.
-After Duffey beat the Yanks, New York media piled on, basically horrified at what had transpired.
-The Twins head to Toronto for a three-game series that begins Monday.