The Twins' latest thrilling, game-winning play could have been a rally-killer in about three different ways on Tuesday night. But like a driver who totals his car in a crash yet walks away unscathed, Rocco Baldelli said he prefers to focus on the positive.
"We made some boo-boos on the bases, and we somehow made our way out of it and smell like roses," the Twins manager said after a bizarre series of even-worse Tigers mistakes delivered Minnesota's second consecutive walkoff victory, this one 5-4 over Detroit. "Once in awhile you walk away and you just kind of throw your hands in the air, and you smile, and you take the win."
Trailing by a run in the ninth but with two runners on base, Miguel Sano lined a long fly ball to deep right-center, a catchable ball that instead glanced off Robbie Grossman's glove for a hit just in front of the warning track.
When Trevor Larnach was held at third base and Sano charged three-fourths of the way toward second, Gio Urshela was caught between the two. A baserunning out, and potentially even a game-ending double play, appeared inevitable.
But Tigers catcher Eric Haase, jogging toward the traffic jam at third base, tossed the ball over Jeimer Candelario's head and into left field. Larnach and Urshela both scored before the Tigers could retrieve the ball, and the Twins' bench erupted again, just as it did two days earlier after Byron Buxton's walkoff home run.
"This is one of those days where it's probably not worth breaking it all down," Baldelli said. "I don't know what I'm even talking about right now, but that sums up the last play of the game and the result."
The bizarre finish handed the Twins their fifth consecutive victory, matching their longest winning streak of 2021, and lifted them above .500 for the first time in more than a year, since they were 5-4 on April 11, 2021.
When the ball was hit, Sano said, "I've been thinking, 'He catch it,' " and why wouldn't he? The first baseman has been caught in another April slump, batting only .078 as he came to the plate in the ninth, with just four hits all year.