Twins 7, Royals 6: Never in doubt

Well that was something, wasn’t it? Through 7 innings, it seemed like the Twins were going to have to settle for a series victory and head back home with the goal of starting another win streak. Despite a solid outing from Bailey Ober, the Twins found themselves behind 6-0 after Yennier Cano surrendered 5 runs in the top of the 6th. If I’m being honest, at this point in the game I just decided to turn it off and go play FIFA, because I wasn’t exactly optimistic about the Twins’ chances of erasing a 6 run deficit. It turns out that that was not a smart decision at all, as the Twins answered Kansas City’s 6th inning 5 spot with one of their own in the 8th. It started with a pair of RBI singles from Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler, which cut the lead to 6-2. Then, Gary Sanchez continued his solid month of May with a sac fly that scored Polanco and cut it to 6-3. After that, Kyle Garlick homered to left center, which brought Kepler home and made it a one run ballgame. The Twins would load the bases again with 2 outs, and then Luis Arraez struck out on a really questionable call from home plate umpire Jeremy Riggs. Tyler Duffey kept the Royals off the board in the bottom of the 8th, and the Twins came to bat in the top of the 9th down by 1. The inning started out about as well as it possibly could have, with Jorge Polanco drawing a walk and Max Kepler following up with a double to set the Twins up with second and third with nobody out. Gary Sanchez drove in the tying run with another sacrifice fly that scored Polanco. After Max Kepler took third on a wild pitch by Kansas City’s Josh Staumont, Gio Urshela drove him in with a two-out base hit. The Twins had taken the lead for the first time in the game, and then Jhoan Duran came in and shut the door in the bottom of the inning, securing an extremely unlikely 7-6 road win and a sweep for Minnesota. All that late inning chaos produced a Fangraphs win probability chart that looked like this:

Fangraphs

STUDS
Luis Arraez: 3-5, run scored in 8th.
Jorge Polanco: 2-3, 2 runs scored, RBI single in 8th.
Gary Sanchez: sac fly RBIs in 8th and 9th.
Max Kepler: 2-4, RBI single in 8th, double in 9th.
Gio Urshela: 1-1, go ahead RBI single in 9th.
Bailey Ober: 5IP, 3H, 1ER, 4K, 1BB

DUDS
NO DUDS TWINS WIN!!!

Enjoy your Sunday evening.