Nelson Cruz hit three home runs, Jose Berrios won for the first time since June 6 and the Twins rolled to a 10-3 win over the Chicago White Sox Thursday night.
It was nice to see the Twins get a convincing win for a change after they fell short to the New York Yankees.
Cruz led the way with his three blasts and 5 RBI, but Max Kepler also chipped in with No. 26 and Miguel Sano hit his 17th.
Berrios struck out eight over seven innings and rookie reliever and Harvard University pitcher, Sean Poppen, pitched two innings of scoreless baseball to wrap up the win.
Michael Pineda gets the ball Friday.
Extra innings…
-Unfortunately, Cleveland won again Thursday so the lead in the AL Central stands at two games.
-Byron Buxton was back in the lineup and didn’t miss a beat with two doubles and two runs scored.
-Defensively, the Twins had a strange night. The team committed four errors, but left fielder Eddie Rosario also recorded an outfield assist and was part of a double play that went from Rosario to Jorge Polanco to Jonathan Schoop, according to the box score.
-The three-homer game was the first of Cruz’s career. He now has 385 career blasts over a 15-year career. Can he get to 400 this season? He just might.
-The Twins have set a new major league record. They are the first team to have nine, five-homer games in one season. And there’s still a lot of season left.
-The sloppy defense wasn’t lost on Strib columnist, Patrick Reusse.
Twins are ahead 10-3 and playing like morons.
— Reusse (@Patrick_Reusse) July 26, 2019
-And finally… after the Yankees and Twins battled for three games, the Yanks played in Boston on Thursday and were steamrolled, 19-3. How about this pitching line? Yankees starter Masahiro Tanaka served up 12 runs, all earned, in three-plus innings. Yikes.