Twins set MLB record for homers before All-Star break in rout of Rangers

In order to save their energy and nurse their injuries, the Twins have canceled batting practice this weekend. Well, except during the actual games.

The Twins offense, absent for intermittent stretches during a series at Oakland, returned home for a day-late fireworks show Friday, adding a historic dimension to the usual blasts. Luis Arraez, Jorge Polanco, Jonathan Schoop and Mitch Garver all homered, the Twins set a franchise high for doubles in a game, and Martin Perez made his former team regret letting him go. Every Twins starter had a hit in their 15-6 rout of the Rangers before an announced crowd of 38,073 at Target Field.

The four blasts, three of them launched more than 400 feet, gave the Twins 165 home runs on the season, still the most in baseball — and not just this year. Minnesota has now hit more home runs before the All-Star break than any team ever, eclipsing the Yankees' total of 161 last year.

"The numbers we've put up to this point, it's pretty unbelievable," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "I haven't seen many performances like it — and we've done it time after time."

The home runs were only part of the Twins' rock 'n' roll offense. Minnesota collected doubles by the bushel, nine in all, eclipsing the eight they hit April 17, 2007. The 13 extra-base hits? Done only once before, in their eight-homer game in Baltimore in April.

And if all the offense took the Rangers by surprise, imagine what a shock it was watching Perez mow them down for six innings. The lefthander signed with the Twins last winter after 11 years in the Texas system, and his new team immediately armed him with a new pitch: the cutter.

Perez's former teammates were impressed.

"Elvis [Andrus] came to the plate [and said], 'What was that, man?' " Perez said after pitching six shutout innings before tiring (and allowing four runs) in the seventh. "I know he looked at me and just said, 'That's a good pitch.' Now they know."

The Twins have known for a while.

"You could tell he was probably a little amped up, facing his old team," Baldelli said. "You could see it. The stuff wasn't just ticking up — he was commanding the ball to both sides of the plate."

As for the Twins, road-weary, almost universally nicked by one minor injury or another and approaching a four-day break after one of the best starts they've enjoyed in years, they needed a blowout victory like this one. They have beaten an opponent by a half-dozen runs 17 times this season, but before Friday it happened only once in the past four weeks. Sensing a need for energy, and after arriving home from the West Coast after midnight the night before, Baldelli told his team that any pregame work this weekend is up to them.

Perhaps the Twins' second inning was a thank you to their manager. Or maybe it was just pent-up frustration from going 4-for-25 with runners in scoring position over three days in Oakland. Whatever the ignition, the detonation was intense. Rangers starter Adrian Sampson was the victim, allowing 11 hits while recording only 10 outs.

Garver doubled to open the second inning, and Marwin Gonzalez, back from a sore toe, singled him home. After a double play, Arraez hit his second career home run, depositing Sampson's pitch onto the plaza in right field.

Schoop and Byron Buxton followed with doubles, Max Kepler singled, and Polanco drove a pitch onto the grass beyond the center field fence. And when Nelson Cruz stretched a line drive down the left field line into a double, the Twins had matched a franchise record that's 53 years old: The last time (and only other time) they bashed six extra-base hits in an inning came against the Kansas City A's on June 9, 1966.

The Rangers managed a five-run outburst, capped by a Shin-Soo Choo home run off Ryne Harper, in the seventh. But the comeback was futile, because the Twins simply kept tacking more runs on to their total. Garver's homer off lefthander Brett Martin ignited a three-run seventh, and doubles by Gonzalez and Cron set off a three-run eighth as the Twins increased their AL Central lead over the idle Indians to 6½ games.