The Twins tied the game up in the seventh inning on Friday, used two scoreless innings from Louie Varland and then walked off the Tampa Bay Rays with a Harrison Bader home run in the ninth.
Saturday’s game followed a similar formula, with a different cast of starring characters.
A four-run sixth, capped by Kody Clemens’ three-run, opposite-field blast, with two scoreless frames from Jhoan Duran and then a bunt single from Brooks Lee in the ninth sent the Twins to victory on Saturday afternoon at Target Field. This one was a 6-5 victory over Tampa Bay.
After Byron Buxton walked to begin the ninth and Willi Castro moved him to third with a single, Lee — who entered the game earlier in the day as a pinch hitter — laid down a bunt. It hit the glove of first baseman Yandy Diaz, bringing home Buxton and sending the Twins piling out onto the field in celebration.
The walk-off win — the 500th win of manager Rocco Baldelli’s managerial career — came on a day when the Twins rode the bullpen from innings one through nine. In place of Bailey Ober, who landed on the injured list earlier in the week, the Twins opted for a bullpen game started by Cole Sands.
Sands and then lefty Danny Coulombe each threw a scoreless inning before making way for rookie Travis Adams, who made his major league debut. Adams couldn’t hold the Rays down in his four innings pitched, giving up at least a run in each of them. He threw four innings and allowed five runs on nine hits. Three of the five runs came on sacrifice flies.
But the Twins’ offense, which had scored just one run to that point on a Royce Lewis infield single, came alive in the sixth. Lewis drove in his second run of game before Kody Clemens tied it up with one big swing, where it remained until the ninth.
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