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Baseball’s worst team with the bases loaded, and the Twins’ worst hitter with runners in scoring position, confronted their weaknesses head-on Thursday.
Well, sort of. But it worked out well for them.
Joey Gallo drew a bases-loaded walk in the second inning, Max Kepler hit a double-play grounder that the Padres couldn’t quite turn in the seventh, and the Twins rode that, um, clutch hitting to a 5-3 victory at Target Field.
Carlos Correa, who entered the series 1-for-14 at home this season in prime scoring chances, doubled home two runs to break a 3-3 tie, his second day with an actual clutch hit and the Twins won an interleague series for the first time in three chances. Just in time, too, with the Cubs coming to Target Field this weekend, the Twins visiting Dodger Stadium next week, and the Giants greeting them when they return home.
Bailey Ober pitched six reasonably strong innings, an outing that would have been even better had he not been ambushed by the Padres’ lineup to open three different innings. Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the game with a home run into the left-field seats, Rougned Odor opened the fifth by blasting one over the right-field wall, and Manny Machado and Juan Soto hit back-to-back doubles to start the fourth inning.
But San Diego went 2-for-20 the rest of the time against Ober, who didn’t walk a batter and struck out six. Emilio Págan, Brock Stewart and Jorge López pitched a scoreless inning apiece in relief, López snapping a streak of three blown saves to earn his third save of the season.
Stewart loaded the bases in the eighth by walking two and hitting Xander Bogaerts with a pitch, but struck out Trent Grisham to end the threat.
Kyle Farmer, in his second game back after being beaned in the mouth last month, was hit on the wrist by a pitch in the second inning — that loaded the bases, and Gallo followed with his walk to force in the Twins’ first run — but Farmer responded with a solo home run two innings later off Padres starter Yu Darvish.
The Twins trailed 3-2 entering the seventh, but with Darvish gone, they took advantage relievers Brent Honeywell and Steven Wilson. Honeywell gave up a single to Gallo, hit Ryan Jeffers with a pitch and walked Byron Buxton to load the bases. That’s normally a strong position for a pitcher, given that the Twins entered the game with a mere four singles in 28 bases-loaded at-bats this year, a .143 average that ranks last in MLB.
Sure enough, it appeared that Kepler would end the inning with a sharp grounder to Bogaerts at short. But second baseman Ha-Seong Kim’s relay throw to first base pulled Jake Cronenworth off the first-base bag, and Gallo scored the tying run.
Correa followed with a hot line drive down the left field line, scoring Jeffers from third and pinch-runner Michael A. Taylor from first.
The game featured 10 fly-ball putouts by center fielders Nick Gordon and Taylor, some of them amazing defensive plays.
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