The Twins went toe-to-toe with the St. Louis Cardinals at Target Field Friday night and finally outslugged the Red Birds for a 9-8 win in Game 1 of their weekend series.
Consistently winning by outslugging your opponent isn’t a proven winning strategy unless, of course, you’re the 1927 New York Yankees, but even that team had pitching (11 shutouts, 3.20 team ERA).
Still, it worked for the Twins.
The Cardinals scored first and the Twins countered with a Byron Buxton home run, his 21st of the season. The Cardinals pulled ahead and Kody Clemens delivered a three-run shot, his 10th, to tie the game at 7-7. The Twins then fell behind by a run, but Royce Lewis hit a solo shot and Brooks Lee smacked the go-ahead dinger, his 11th, for the one-run win.
The win, of course, put the bullpen in a much better light after they failed to protect leads. Starter Joe Ryan allowed three quick runs, but still settled down to make another quality start. Taylor Rogers, Eric Orze and Yoendrys Gomez, however, allowed five additional runs.
The win finally went to Anthony Banda and the save, his second, to rookie reliever Andrew Morris.
Connor Prielipp gets the ball Saturday.
Extra innings…
–Buxton’s day: Buck hit a home run and two doubles to go 3-for-3 with three runs scored, an RBI and a walk. You can expect to see him at this year’s mid-summer classic, for sure.
–Ryan’s line: Three runs allowed on six hits across six innings with no walks and eight strikeouts. It was another no-decision game for him. He has made 15 starts, but is still stuck with a record of 4-3.
–Trouble with Zebulon: Zebby Matthews did not have a good game in the Twins’ blowout loss to the Detroit Tigers on Thursday. Matthews allowed seven runs on nine hits, including three home runs, over six innings to fall to 2-4 with a 5.20 ERA. The pitching just isn’t there for this Twins team.
–More rain: Once again the Twins played a game delayed by rain, this time for 30 minutes. It was followed by an actual game time of two hours and 48 minutes.