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James will be by with the normal recap shortly, but here are five key plays that dictated the game tonight.
Miguel Sano throws out Giancarlo Stanton to end the first
After being gifted an early lead, Jose Berrios got into a little jam, and ended up with two outs, and two men in scoring position in the first inning. Facing Giancarlo Stanton, Berrios induced a hot grounder up the third base gap. Miguel Sano barehanded the ball and threw it to CJ Cron—and the ump called Stanton safe, the run scored, and the Twins lost their momentum. Except, we live in the replay era, and the replay clearly showed Sano’s throw beat Stanton, the call was reversed, the run came off the board, and the Twins escaped the inning without giving up a run.
The failed double play in the third
Bases loaded, one out Yankees down by a run. Gleyber Torres hits a grounder to Polanco, who turns and gets the ball to Arraez, but Arraez’ throw to first was a little off, and snuck by Cron. Two runners score, and the Twins are down 3-2 instead of being up 2-1 and out of the inning. Fortunately, Gary Sanchez is an honest guy, and the Twins escaped with no further damage.
Jorge Polanco, again, in the fifth
Polanco had opened the scoring with a solo bomba in the first, but his second RBI of the night was much bigger. Luis Arraez started the fifth inning off with a double, should-have-been-triple to left. James Paxton then pushed C.J. Cron and Mitch Garver into striking out on breaking balls in the dirt. It looked like Paxton might get the best of Polanco, too, until the Twins shortstop poked a liner back into left-center, and plated Arraez to tie the game back up, and chase Paxton from the game.
Zack Littell’s entire appearance
Littell didn’t last long in the bottom of the fifth, but he walked his first batter and hit his second. He’d turn the game over to Tyler Duffey with two men on, and no outs. Those would be the two runners who scored against Duffey, and gave the Yankees a 5-3 lead.
The Gibson-plosin
In the seventh, the Twins were only down by three runs, when Kyle Gibson game in. He loaded the bases on walks, and then let them haunt when DJ LeMahieu hit a base-clearing double, and showed that as always, walks will haunt. The Yankees took a six run lead, and basically put the game out of reach of the Twins.