Eddie Rosario's clutch hit rewards Jose Berrios for strong outing in Twins victory over Tampa Bay

ST. PETERSBURG, FLA. – The Twins are embracing the nickname "BombaSquad" to describe their home-run-happy offense. Mostly because of outfielder Eddie Rosario, whose comment "Everyone is happy when you are hitting a lot of bombas" was a money quote, as they say in the business.

Rosario entered Friday tied for the American League lead with 17 home runs — but he didn't need to hit a bomba to make the Twins happy.

His single to left off Rays lefthander Adam Kolarek with the bases loaded scored two tiebreaking runs in the ninth and lifted the Twins to a 5-3 victory over Tampa Bay.

"I love these moments," Rosario said. "I want to try to make good contact with the ball. I wasn't thinking too much. I know he's [Kolarek] a lefty who throws sinkers. We saw a lot of good lefties today, but the most important is the last at-bat."

Lefthander Taylor Rogers, in relief of starter Jose Berrios, pitched the final 2⅓ innings to pick up the win. The Twins stopped the Rays' six-game winning streak while winning for just the second time in eight games at Tropicana Field.

The Twins finished May with 21 wins, their most wins in a month since they went 22-6 in June 1991. Their lead in the American League Central is 10½ games.

Rays reliever Diego Castillo began the ninth by hitting Jonathan Schoop, who was bunted to second. Max Kepler's grounder moved Schoop to third. The Rays walked Jorge Polanco intentionally, but Castillo plunked Willians Astudillo, loading the bases for Rosario.

"We don't want our guys getting nicked up or anything like that," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said, "but sometimes you take the baserunners any way that you can and sometimes it just takes a big hit or a two-out hit or a hit with some guys on base to kind of wake everyone up and get things going."

Kolarek entered for the lefty-on-lefty matchup, but Rosario came through in front of a crowd that included 25 friends and family.

"I have a lot of family here," Rosario said. "Every time I come to Tampa I have friends and family here. I love it when [they cheer]. When they were saying, 'Ed-die! Ed-die!' that was my family."

Berrios left 34 tickets for his supporters on Friday and worked 6⅔ innings, during which he gave up a two-run home run by Kevin Keirmaier in the second. A leadoff walk to Austin Meadows in the third came back to haunt him; Meadows later stole home on the back end of a double steal to give the Rays a 3-1 lead.

But Berrios held off the Rays from there, and the Twins tied the game in the fifth on an RBI double by Polanco, followed by Astudillo's RBI single.

Miguel Sano thought he had hit the go-ahead home run in the eighth, but his towering drive hit the "B" catwalk in left — which is in play, and Willy Adames caught the deflection for the final out of the inning. Statcast projected that the ball would have traveled 325 feet, which would have put it near the wall.

But no bomba, no problem, as Rosario went the other way for a well-placed two-run single.

"Rosie waits for these situations," Baldelli said. "I think he goes to bed at night thinking about them and wanting them."