Yordan Alvarez got a pitch to his liking and unleashed all the might of the 6-foot-4, 240-pound designated hitter behind the swing. It was a high fastball from Griffin Jax, right at the top of the zone, and it quickly disappeared into the second deck in right-center field.
Alvarez’s ninth-inning home run completed Houston’s comeback. Once trailing by six runs, the Astros marched all the way back back to knot the game, then scored another pair of runs in the 10th to oust the Twins 9-7 on Sunday afternoon in the series finale at Target Field.
Jose Altuve’s RBI single in the 10th gave the Astros, who added an insurance run later in the inning, their first lead since the first inning.
Things could have unraveled completely for the Twins in that first inning, but Twins starter Chris Paddack locked in after giving up three hits in the frame, surrendering only the one run. Then the Twins surged ahead in the bottom of the frame, scoring three runs, one on a Trevor Larnach sacrifice fly and then next two on a Ryan Jeffers double off the wall.
The Twins kept building on that lead, adding one run in the second and three more in the fourth, an inning started by Matt Wallner, who collected four hits in the loss. But the Twins’ offense, up six, did not score after the fourth inning. And in the fifth, Houston began its climb back.
Paddack found trouble yet again in a fifth frame that began with a walk, double and a Willi Castro throwing error, a play on which a run scored. Paddack departed with the bases loaded, making way for Cole Sands, who did his part to minimize the damage. But, all told, three runs scored.
Houston scored again in the sixth to pull within two, an inning that could have been much worse had Harrison Bader’s diving catch on a Alvarez liner to left field not saved a run, or potentially even two.
And that’s where things stood until the ninth. The Twins put two runners aboard in the eighth inning, but weren’t able to do any damage.
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