The New York Yankees beat the Minnesota Twins 14-12 on Tuesday night at Target Field in Minneapolis on Tuesday night. If you like offense, you were in for a real treat.
In a battle of American League division leaders (Yankees lead the American League East by nine and a half games over the Tampa Bay Rays and the Twins lead the American League Central by three games over the Cleveland Indians), there were five lead changes, 35 hits, six home runs and eight doubles.
The offensive star of the game was Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius. The native of Amsterdam was a perfect five for five at the plate with two singles, two doubles, one home run and seven runs batted in. In the process, Gregorius saw his batting average skyrocket from .252 to .281.
Seven Yankees had a multi-hit game. In addition to Gregorius’s five hits, Aaron Judge had three hits, while Aaron Hicks, Edwin Encarnacion, Luke Voit, Gleyber Torres and Mike Tauchman had two hits each.
On the Twins side, Jorge Polanco led Minnesota with three hits, while Miguel Sano, Eddie Rosario, Luis Arraez and Jason Castro had two hits each. Both of Sano’s hits were home runs as he had five runs batted in himself.
The Twins actually had an 8-2 lead after four innings and blew it. The Yankees outscored the Twins 3-1 in the fifth inning to make the score 9-5 Minnesota. Then in the top of the eighth inning, the Yankees scored five runs to take a 10-9 lead. The top of the eighth inning took almost half an hour to play as the Yankees had nine batters and had four hits, highlighted by Judge’s massive double that hit the top of the wall and scored Tauchman and Gio Urshela.
The Twins retook the lead in the bottom of the eighth inning on a two run home run by Sano. However, the 11-10 Minnesota lead was short lived as Hicks, a former Twins outfielder, put the Yankees back on top 12-11 in the top of the ninth with a two run home run of his own. In the bottom of the ninth, Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman ran into control problems as he walked his first three batters before Polanco tied the game with a sacrifice fly. Then in extra innings the Yankees scored twice to take a 14-12 lead in the 10th inning on a RBI single by Torres and on a run by Austin Romine, who scored on a wild pitch.
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