Home runs - six of them - power Twins to victory over A's

It was one of those nights that fans should have brought rangefinders to Target Field.

The batter's eye behind the center field wall wasn't safe. The second deck in left field wasn't, either. And, as one fan found out, the center-field party deck was within range for the most powerful of Twins power hitters Tuesday.

The Twins kept hitting home runs during a 9-1 rout of the Athletics, setting a Target Field single-game record with six. And most of them were walloped, traveling an average distance of 419 feet.

Boom! Watch Sano's monster blow and the other Twins home runs

Miguel Sano — who else? — topped them all when he hit a Sonny Gray pitch in the third inning an estimated 466 feet and into Catch, the party deck that tops the batter's eye.

Sano watched a replay of the blast and realized the ball did not land in a bowl of guacamole.

"I hit a girl in the mouth," Sano said. "I want to say sorry about the girl."

Brian Dozier (twice), Jason Castro, Byron Buxton and Joe Mauer also hit home runs as the Twins won for the fifth time in the past six games. Buxton and Mauer homered for the first time this season.

Twins righthander Ervin Santana had trouble spotting his fastball all night and lasted only six innings. But he managed to shut out the A's on three hits and three walks to lower his major-league leading ERA to 0.66.

He picked the right night to not be razor-sharp, as the Twins went deep off Gray three times in six innings.

"The ball was carrying, for whatever reason," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "There wasn't much wind."

Gray hung a changeup to Dozier in the third inning and watched it land in the seats in left. Max Kepler then walked to bring Sano to the plate.

Sano pounced on a 95 miles-per-hour fastball and watched it head toward Catch. The 466-foot blast is tied for the fourth-longest homer at Target Field, according to the Twins.

"Just a very, very small percentage of players who can dream of hitting a ball like that," Molitor said. "And he seems to have that capability on almost a nightly basis as of late. It is nice to watch."

While the Twins announced the distance at 466 feet, Statcast — used by Major League Baseball — claimed it was only 444 feet. What gives?

The Twins estimate home runs based on a chart provided by stadium architects when Target Field was built. Statcast uses measurements based on exit speed off the bat and launch angle. Pressbox denizens scrutinized each one, trying to figure out which was fact and which was an alternative fact.

Meanwhile, the Twins kept hitting homers.

Castro homered off the batter's eye in the fourth to make it 4-0. Three homers were hit in the seventh — a solo blast by Buxton into the second deck in left, a solo homer by Dozier off the batter's eye, then a two-run homer to left by Mauer — as the Twins took an 8-0 lead. The Twins' final run came in the eighth when Jorge Polanco scored on a Buxton groundout.

The Twins' victory Tuesday was decisive — and definitely loud.

"It was huge," Santana said. "Especially when the game was 0-0. We break out and we hit it out almost every other at-bat. I was happy to see our hitters do their job today."