He'd never admit it, ballplayers almost never do. And Gio Urshela knows the code.
But beating the Yankees, the team that decided he was expendable last March — that had to feel good, right?
"Nah, I just treat it like any other team," Urshela said, smiling as he recited the rote script. "I know it's a lot of memories, a lot of friends, but I just play like any other team."
Well, whoever it was in those Yankees jerseys, Urshela exacted a little revenge on Wednesday, driving home one run and scoring another in the Twins' unlikely 8-1 victory over their biggest nemesis.
Any Twins win over the Yankees is pretty unlikely, given their 16-38 record against New York over the past decade. In fact, this one — snapping a seven-game Yankees winning streak — was the second-most lopsided Twins win of the 21st century, topped only by a 10-1 drubbing in an ironic Phil Hughes-vs.-Michael Pineda matchup in 2015.
But the details of this game were unexpected, too. For instance, what chance did the Twins have against the most effective lefthander in baseball so far this season?
Turns out, more than you'd think. Nestor Cortes, whose ERA this season stood at an MLB-best 1.50 before the game, tacked on almost another half-run in a crazy before-and-after outing. The lefthander retired the first nine hitters he faced in order, raising the specter of yet another Twins shutout. But then Cortes abruptly collapsed, somehow surrendering hits to seven of the next 10 Twins, the last one a Byron Buxton home run over the center field wall.
"He has a funny look to him. The pitches he throws off of each other move and start in places you're not expecting," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "But we were able to make some midgame adjustments, pick out certain pitches, maybe set your sights in a little bit of a different spot. The at-bats certainly looked more comfortable as the game went on."
It was the second consecutive night that Minnesota hitters knocked out a Yankee starter on a winning streak in the fifth inning, following their four-run effort against Jameson Taillon in a 10-4 loss one night earlier. This time, though, the Twins backed up their lineup with four double plays and some effective pitching.
Even if it sometimes didn't look like it. Chris Archer dealt with five Yankees on base — four walks and an error on shortstop Nick Gordon — before allowing his first hit. But the veteran righthander gave up only two hits, and just one run, in five innings, enough to earn his first victory as a Twin in his 11th start.
"Look, mistakes are going to happen. It's baseball. I'm going to make a ton of mistakes, sometimes position players are going to make mistakes," Archer said of a fourth-inning, bases-loaded jam that was exacerbated by the error. "But in the back of my mind, I knew if I got Nicky G another ground ball, we were going to roll it up."
He did and Gordon did, allowing Archer to escape the inning without a run.
"He was up to 96½ [mph], the hardest pitch he's thrown in four years. That's just a signal to how he's feeling," Baldelli said. "But he stayed strong. He was in the strike zone the entire time, facing some really good hitters. They're tough and so is he."
But it was the hitters who ruled the night for the Twins. Besides his home run, Buxton had a single and a walk. Carlos Correa, in his first action since coming off the COVID list, singled and walked as well, scoring each time. Trevor Larnach contributed a pinch-hit RBI double. Ryan Jeffers snapped an 0-for-21 skid with an upper-deck home run off Cortes.
And Jose Miranda had the first three-hit night of his career, driving in three runs. He's never been a Yankee, but showed the enthusiasm for beating them that Urshela kept hidden.
"Oh yeah. It feels great," Miranda said. "It feels super-great, especially coming against the Yankees, a great team."
