PITTSBURGH – Jhoan Duran isn’t known as the most vocal player, but Manuel Margot called him the Twins’ motivator behind their seven-run outburst in the 10th inning Sunday, walking through the dugout after pitching a scoreless inning.
Twins ride seven-run 10th inning to beat Pirates 11-5, end five-game losing streak
The Twins ended their shutout streak with a three-run first inning, then put together a big rally in the 10th to salvage the finale in Pittsburgh.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
June 10, 2024 at 12:58AM
“He said: ‘Hey guys, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go! We need to win the game!” Margot said.
The Twins’ 22-inning scoreless drought that spanned 329 pitches came to an end in the first inning. It took extra innings to put a stop to their five-game losing streak.
Margot, after listening to Duran, opened the 10th inning with an opposite-field RBI triple, giving the Twins their first hit with a runner in scoring position in 13 chances. Carlos Santana and Carlos Correa added two-run hits in an 11-5 victory over the Pirates at PNC Park. The Twins ended their nine-game road trip through Houston, New York and Pittsburgh with a 3-6 record.
“It took a lot,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “These are the kind of games — a 3½-hour day game — looking around at the guys, they looked like they left a lot out on the field.”
The Twins, shut out in their previous two games, batted around in the 10th inning in just their second extra-inning game of the season. Ben Heller, the fifth reliever the Pirates used, issued a 10-pitch walk to Ryan Jeffers when it was still a one-run game, hit three batters and surrendered five hits in an ugly 46-pitch inning.
“We know who we are,” said Jeffers, who broke out of an 0-for-18 slump with a double in the second inning. “We have a lot of really good offensive players. We’re just going through some ups and downs. We put it together really well for a little while, and then we just don’t. ... I wish we could put a finger on it.”
Before the offensive floodgates opened, the Twins scored unconventionally. Trevor Larnach and Correa hit back-to-back singles against Pirates hard-throwing rookie Jared Jones in the first inning. Jones walked Max Kepler on four pitches to load the bases, then issued a bases-loaded walk to Jose Miranda, a hitter with one of the lowest walk rates in the majors. Miranda, to his credit, laid off a slider and fastballs below the strike zone.
It was the first time the Twins scored a run since the fifth inning Thursday in New York against the Yankees. Alex Kirilloff drove in another run with a ground ball that was too slow for a double play.
The first inning took a controversial turn when Byron Buxton checked his swing on an inside fastball, fouling the ball backward off catcher Henry Davis’ mitt before it deflected to the backstop. It wasn’t called a foul ball, and Kepler scored from third on the nonreviewable passed ball.
It was a three-run first inning, and the Twins scored two without putting the ball in play.
“That’s just us not giving up and not giving in on at-bats,” Buxton said.
Bailey Ober gave up a two-run lead in the fifth inning after he walked Davis, the No. 9 hitter in the Pirates lineup, with two outs. Andrew McCutchen drew a nine-pitch walk, Bryan Reynolds lined an RBI double to right field, and Connor Joe knocked Ober out of the game with a two-run triple that landed past a diving Kirilloff in the left-center gap.
In the sixth inning, after the Twins were aided by a hit batter and a four-pitch walk, pinch hitter Royce Lewis hit a game-tying sacrifice fly, turning the game into a battle of the bullpen. Six Twins relievers combined to permit three hits and zero earned runs in 5⅓ innings.
“Coming into this year, that bullpen was going to be the backbone of our team,” Jeffers said.
The Twins’ season has been defined by streaks. A 12-game winning streak at the beginning of May. Three separate losing streaks of at least five games.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced such streakiness like this,” Ober said. “Baseball is a weird game. It’s going to knock you down. You just have to keep getting back up.”
Talk of competing for the best players or of a potential new owner wielding big bucks doesn’t change this: They are last in popularity among the four major men’s pro sports.
