Twins top Rays in ninth, take third series in row from a first-place team

The boxscore says Jorge Polanco had a quiet game, just 0-for-1. The reality is, it was plenty loud. And his team is finally making some noise, too.

Polanco hit a fly ball to the right-field warning track in the bottom of the ninth off former teammate Matt Wisler, deep enough to score Max Kepler from third base with the winning run. Once he did, the Twins celebrated their 5-4 victory over the Rays, finishing off their third consecutive series victory over first-place teams in the past 11 days.

"Winning is fun," summed up rookie lefthander Charlie Barnes.

So it appears, though the Twins' giddy August is tinged with the regrets of a wasted April, May, June and July. But though the postseason is long out of reach, it's been a remarkable stretch, especially considering they are doing it without their most productive hitter and pitcher, traded last month, and about 20 injured players.

The Twins are 7-3 since Aug. 5, having taken three of four from the Astros, two of three from the White Sox and now two of three from the Rays. It's the first time this season the Twins, still 14 games below break-even, have won three consecutive series, and the schedule doesn't get much easier now. Second-place Cleveland is next, followed by road games against the New York Yankees and Boston, and a home series with Milwaukee, the latter three teams all owning at least 65 victories so far.

"We want more. We want much more of what we're seeing right now," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "This is not an easy part of the schedule. And we've kind of brought it to the teams we're playing."

Kepler, Polanco and Josh Donaldson brought it to the Rays on Sunday, the top three hitters in the Twins lineup combining to reach base nine times and drive in four runs. With the score tied 4-4, Kepler opened the ninth with a double — his second of the day, and only his team's fourth hit. Kepler then took third when Tampa Bay left fielder Austin Meadows let the ball bounce past him.

Wait, can you be a hero when you go 0-for-1?

"It is a great day. That's what a great day looks like in this league," Baldelli said of his team's nine total walks. "That's a recipe for success. We made a team with good stuff have to come to us in the strike zone. That's actually forcing the action by going up there and just waiting for a pitch to hit — their pitch to hit."

They got them in the first and fourth innings, each time set up by those walks, each time cashed in by Donaldson's timely hitting. Rays starter Luis Patino walked three hitters in the first, with Donaldson's single scoring one run and Trevor Larnach's bases-loaded groundout driving in another.

Two innings later, Kepler and Polanco drew two-out walks against reliever Ryan Sherriff, and Donaldson made the Rays pay again. All-Star reliever Andrew Kittredge left a slider in the middle of the plate, and Donaldson hit it into the left-field corner, giving the Twins a four-run lead.

Barnes, on the other hand, didn't walk a batter while contributing his strongest start yet, shutting down the league's second-highest scoring team for five innings on three hits. He made one mistake: Mike Zunino connected on a 2-1 changeup in the fifth inning and drove it into the left-field bleachers, his 25th home run of the season.

Barnes didn't get his first career victory, because Rays rookie Wander Franco hit a two-run homer in the sixth inning and Tampa Bay scored a tying unearned run in the seventh. But Caleb Thielbar pitched out of trouble in the seventh and eighth innings and Alexander Colome threw a scoreless ninth to set up his teammates' walkoff heroics.

"I don't have super overpowering stuff, so I know I have to really pick and choose where I'm going to put the ball. That's something I did a really good job of today," Barnes said. "Like I said before — winning is fun."

All of a sudden, and at the unlikeliest time, the Twins understand.