For all the creative ways the Twins have found to lose this season, they have identified at least one reliably effective way to win: Hit home runs. Lots of them.
Unfortunately, the strategy doesn't work when you give up more than you hit.
Minnesota slugged three home runs on Sunday, but the Rays crushed four, including two apiece by Logan Morrison and Evan Longoria, and Tampa Bay walked off with its third victory in the four-game series, 7-5 at Target Field.
"They've got some hot hitters over there, no doubt about that," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "You make mistakes, you have to pay."
For all the long balls, though, the biggest mistake was a ball that fell about 10 feet short of the fence, a leadoff ninth-inning double by Steven Souza Jr. that triggered the game-winning rally. Souza sailed Kevin Jepsen's 3-2 fastball to the base of the wall, and when it skipped between Byron Buxton's legs and bounced away, Souza wound up on third base. When a pair of walks loaded the bases, Brad Miller hit a one-out sacrifice fly, and Longoria followed with an RBI single, handing Tampa Bay its sixth series victory in Target Field's seven seasons.
Morrison homered in the final three games of the series, and Longoria in every one, and their four-pack of rocket launches Sunday, blows that traveled more than 1,600 feet combined, helped the Rays set a franchise record with 11 homers in four days in Minneapolis.
"He seemed to keep coming up," Molitor said. "He hit them everywhere. … If he got a mistake, he didn't miss it."
Wait, 11 homers in four games? Those numbers seem awfully familiar to the Twins, who matched them exactly one week earlier against the Royals and Mariners, a power surge similarly led by Miguel Sano and Joe Mauer that lifted Minnesota to four consecutive victories.