Yankees lineup brings the storm to Twins again

NEW YORK — At this point, the Twins might be rooting for Hurricane Henri. He'll be a nice break from the Yankee typhoon.

With the tropical storm bearing down on New York and Sunday's finale already postponed, the Yankees inflicted their usual cyclone damage upon Minnesota pitching Saturday. Kenta Maeda pitched four strong innings, but his arm tightened up amid the Yankees' fifth-inning rally, and New York coasted to a 7-1 victory at Yankee Stadium.

"They beat us today. They beat us this series. They've outplayed us," summed up Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, whose team has lost 19 of its past 21 games, including playoffs, in the Bronx. "Today was just one of those rough ones."

Rougher than most, which is saying something for this lopsided rivalry — New York clinched the season series Saturday for the 14th consecutive season, after the teams didn't play in 2020 — because the Twins might have lost more than just a game. Maeda, after allowing a couple of well-placed hits in the fifth, threw nine consecutive pitches nowhere near the strike zone, then signaled for Twins' trainer Michael Salazar.

"Kenta was feeling some forearm tightness," Baldelli said, and he immediately removed last year's AL Cy Young Award runner-up from the game. He'll be thoroughly tested before the Twins allow him to pitch again. "He was still insisting on the mound — [he's a] competitive guy — that he just needed a minute," Baldelli said, "but that wasn't going to happen."

Maeda's absence immediately turned a pitcher's duel with Yankees ace Gerrit Cole into another rout. Giancarlo Stanton pulled a line drive into the left field corner for two runs against reliever Edgar Garcia, and Luke Voit did the same two batters later, allowing New York to open a 6-0 lead for the third game in a row vs. the Twins and pull away for its ninth consecutive victory.

Not that it would have mattered much against Cole, who has dominated the Twins like few other pitchers. The Yankees righthander pitched six scoreless innings, lowering his career ERA in three starts against the Twins to 0.95, lower than any pitcher in history with at least that many starts except Hisashi Iwakuma (0.21) and Johnny Cueto (0.90).

And when Cole found himself in real danger of allowing the Twins to score, he snuffed a couple of rallies in impressive fashion. Nick Gordon's two-out double put runners on second and third in the second inning, for example, but Cole simply overpowered Willians Astudillo with a 99-mph fastball, causing a weak popup. And when the Twins loaded the bases with one out in the fifth, Cole got Jorge Polanco to whiff at a neck-high fastball, then put Josh Donaldson away with another 99-mph pitch that nicked the corner, low and away.

"He got that big [$324 million] contract for a reason," Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers said of the former first overall draft pick. "We strung a couple hits together here and there, but not enough to really find a rhythm offensively. We were never really able to capitalize on those hits, and we ended up with the situation we got."

BOXSCORE: N.Y. Yankees 7, Twins 1

Polanco provided the Twins with their only run, tying his career high by smacking his 22nd home run into the left-field seats off Yankees lefthander Lucas Luetge, while Yankees shortstop Andrew Velazquez punctuated the Yankees' victory with his first career home run.

"They put five runs on the board [in the fifth inning]. And if there's a healthy Kenta out there, I don't think they're going to put five runs on the board. I think we'd probably have a good ballgame," Baldelli said. "[If we] get a hit or two in those big situations, the ballgame is a completely different reality."

He can dream. But it was the same reality as ever.