Rays' Chris Archer too strong as Twins' winning streak ends at four

Brian Dozier dropped to a knee while striking out in the first inning on a slider from Rays righthander Chris Archer that broke straight down.

Joe Mauer followed and whiffed on the Archer slider that breaks down and in on lefties.

Miguel Sano was next, and swung and missed the sweeping slider for the final out of the inning.

It was quite the "how do you do?" to the Twins on Friday night. The Twins learned right away they needed a hard hat and lunch pail to battle the braided and high-sock styling Archer, but to no avail as the Rays slugged three home runs and eased to a 5-2 win at Target Field.

"You have to have a plan for him for sure and just try to eliminate his nasty pitches and make him try to elevate the ball and then make good contact," said Kennys Vargas, whose RBI single in the seventh was the first run off Archer. "But his fastball was pretty good tonight. His breaking pitch, [too]. He was good tonight."

While their 14-5 road record sparkles, the Twins are 11-14 at home — more losses than any American League team.

But Friday wasn't about them losing as much as it was about being beaten by Archer, who held them to two runs over 7⅔ innings on five hits with 11 strikeouts.

Yes, 11 strikeouts. With a slider he can manipulate and a fastball that reached 98 miles per hour as late as the seventh inning, Archer had his best weapons working on Friday.

"His slider is his most devastating pitch in terms of swing and misses that you'll see," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "He can make it disappear both down and in to the lefties and away to the righties. He's not afraid to throw it behind in the count."

The Twins first hit came with two outs in the third when Jason Castro hit a sharp grounder that deflected off shortstop Tim Beckham. He retrieved the ball but his throw to first base was late. It was ruled a hit.

As the game went on and the outs accumulated, Castro's grounder remained the Twins only hit. The hardest hit ball by a Twin was Mauer's rope to left field in the fourth that was caught for an out.

Twins lefthander Hector Santiago tried to keep the Twins within range, but ran up his pitch count while doing so. After working three shutout innings, Santiago needed 29 pitches to navigate the fourth. And a 3-2 belt-high fastball to Logan Morrison became a two-run homer to open the scoring.

"They said he hasn't pulled a fastball in like two years, and he did it tonight," Santiago, 4-3, said. "You just tip your cap."

Kevin Kiermaier hit a two-run homer off of Ryan Pressly in the sixth to make it 4-0. Archer threw just 68 pitches over the first six innings but 33 in the seventh and eighth innings. That's when Vargas had his RBI single and Dozier drove in a run with a single in the eighth. Steven Souza, Jr. homered in the eighth for the Rays.

But that was all the Twins could muster against an in-form Archer, who is 4-0 with a 1.38 ERA at Target Field.

"He came out and was on the high end of his game, which we know he is capable of," Molitor said. "Impressed by velocity as well as slider command. We swung and missed at that slider I don't know how many times. When it had depth it was almost unhittable."