Twins stun Blue Jays 7-5 behind homers from Mickey Gasper, Matt Wallner in ninth

Mickey Gasper hadn’t collected a hit in a month and had never hit a home run in the majors. Yet when he drove a ninth-inning sinker from Toronto Blue Jays closer Jeff Hoffman into the second deck in right field, tying a game that the Twins once trailed by four runs, he calmly dropped his bat and jogged quickly around the bases.

Emote much?

“My dad always told me to act like you’ve done it before,” Gasper told reporters after the Twins’ dramatic 7-5 come-from-behind victory at Rogers Centre in Toronto. “Mickey Mantle puts his head down and runs the bases. Mickey Gasper should, too.”

Mantle never went hitless for a month, though. The rest of the Twins were plenty raucous about Gasper’s first-ever three-hit night, especially once Matt Wallner put the game away with a two-out blast into the bullpen, his fourth home run in the past three games.

“We had some guys come up huge,” manager Rocco Baldelli said after the Twins ended their three-game losing streak. “That was so enjoyable to watch.”

Especially because it ended so many other streaks and overcame so many challenges. Gasper, the Twins’ fill-in catcher this month, was 0-for-26 since July 26 coming into the game but singled twice before his home run. Wallner was 2-for-31 (.065) this season with more than one runner on base and hadn’t homered with two runners on in more than a year. The Twins had lost 11 consecutive games started by Bailey Ober, who left the game Tuesday trailing 4-0.

But “we’re in every game,” Gasper said. “Our defense wasn’t crisp, our baserunning wasn’t crisp, but we found a way to win that game, just by not giving up and sticking to it.”

BOXSCORE: Twins 7, Toronto 5

MLB standings

And none of it mattered once Gasper crushed a high-in-the-zone sinker into the night, or when Wallner blasted a first-pitch fastball nearly 400 feet.

“Sometimes you need guys to come up and pop a homer,” Baldelli said. Speaking of Gasper, who also threw out Ernie Clement trying to steal second base, Baldelli added, “he helped us overcome a rocky beginning to the game.”

That’s something the Twins have made a habit lately — giving their opponents a head start. The Twins have been outscored 22-1 in the first two innings of the first five games of this six-game road trip, which wraps up Wednesday night. Include the final two games of their last homestand, and it’s a 29-1 advantage after two innings for Twins opponents.

With the Twins trailing 4-0, Lee led off the sixth inning with a single, and Keaschall followed by pummeling a first-pitch sinker four rows deep into the left field seats, his third career home run. When Toronto starter Chris Bassitt walked James Outman with his 93rd pitch of the night, Blue Jays manager John Schneider turned to a familiar face — former Twin Louie Varland — to get the third out.

He did, retiring Royce Lewis on a fly ball. But Varland gave up Gasper’s second single of the night and walked Austin Martin to open the seventh inning and was charged with the run when lefthander Brendon Little allowed Gasper to score. The Twins went hitless in the eighth and still trailed 4-3 as the ninth opened.

Up came Gasper, his confidence boosted by his much-needed two-hit night. Moments later, Mantle — er, Gasper — was rounding the bases, sparking the comeback that Wallner completed.