Twins’ big rally falls just short in 10-9 loss to New York Yankees

There was a moment Tuesday night, just a brief oh-my-gosh as Trevor Larnach’s fly ball sailed toward the reserved seats in right field, when it appeared the Twins had done it. When nearly everyone among the 25,500 assembled at Target Field believed that Larnach had completed an incredible comeback from a nine-run deficit against a team the Twins beat seemingly once per decade or so.

“I thought it was out, for sure. Or at least was going to be off the wall,” said Austin Martin, who watched the ball’s trajectory from first base. “The way the ball was flying tonight, I thought it was gone.”

But miracles sometimes die on the warning track.

Aaron Judge stood at the base of the wall and nonchalantly caught Larnach’s would-be game-tying homer, and the Twins went on to fall 10-9.

Larnach actually did connect three innings later, cracking a David Bednar fastball 110 mph into those seats he couldn’t quite reach when it would have changed the game. But it simply added one extra tweak of what-might-have-been to the wildly entertaining game.

Well, perhaps not so enjoyable to Zebby Matthews, who caught the Yankees’ backlash to being shut out one night earlier. The Twins righthander gave up as many runs in three innings Tuesday as he had in his three previous starts combined. Matthews recorded nine outs and allowed nine runs, serving up three doubles, a home run and seven singles.

“It’s honestly going to be tough to pinpoint how the outing went,” a clearly frazzled Matthews said afterward. “They put some really good swings on some pitches that I thought I executed well enough to get outs.”

Somehow, they nearly did it.

“We’ve got some guys that refuse to stop playing hard and want to win at all costs,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You want the win for sure, but I fully enjoyed watching our guys compete out there and do what they did. That was fantastic.”

First, James Outman hit a two-run homer off Yankees rookie Cam Schlittler to provide a little fifth-inning hope. Byron Buxton then created a run out of thin air by drawing a walk, stealing second and third — and terrifying his team’s fans when New York third baseman Ryan McMahon stepped on his hand while sliding — and scoring on a wild pitch.

“He got cleated. His hand did not look good, and he just ain’t coming out of the game,” Baldelli marveled. “You’re not taking this guy out of the game.”

Said Buxton: “It’s fun to be able to create chaos. That’s something we’re harping on quite a bit, stealing bases, taking that extra 90 feet, just putting pressure on them.”

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Then came the sixth inning, when anything seemed possible. Matt Wallner doubled off lefthander Ryan Yarbrough, Mickey Gasper singled and Ryan Fitzgerald hit his third career home run, cutting the deficit to 10-6. After an out, Buxton doubled into the left-field corner, and Martin greeted Mark Leiter Jr. by beating out a bunt.

Up came Larnach, with the Twins fans cheering and the Yankee fans (yes, plenty of them in the park) tense. The Twins designated hitter, who had scored a first-inning run on Royce Lewis’ two-out single, took a called strike from Leiter. The second pitch was a sinker, thigh-high and in the middle of the plate. Larnach connected and sent it foul-pole high into the night, 101.3 mph off the bat.

Maybe 102 mph would have done it.

The ball, however, came down on the warning track, and though Buxton tagged up and scored the Twins’ eighth run — one night after they tallied seven against the defending American League champs — the threat was over. Kody Clemens grounded out to end the inning, the Twins went out in order in the seventh and eighth, and Larnach’s ninth-inning home run, his 17th, merely gave the hopeful crowd one last chance to imagine a Redford-running-the-bases movie ending.

“We almost won the game. [We were] this close to winning the game,” Baldelli said. “I wanted to slap everybody on the backside on the way in for the work they put in. It was serious work.”