Twins 12, Rangers 2: Tempers, balls fly

Matt Wallner provides the early offense and everyone else does later on. Sonny Gray shuts down each Rangers chance he sees, and things get testy in the fourth. Inning-by-inning notes:

1: Did you know that Gray currently leads all of baseball with a 2.78 FIP? You do now. That's largely due to his 0.315 HR/9 rate.

Did you know that Carlos Correa leads all of baseball with 24 GIDP? You do now, and he makes it 25 here. But the Twins go ahead anyways, thanks to four walks and a Wallner triple. Thursday's superdude Ryan Jeffers knocks him in before Joey Gallo provides his usual contribution. Twins 4-0

2: And speaking of HR/9, Mitchell Garver makes that number increase to .375. While Dunning, who threw 35 pitches last inning, throws 7 here. Twins 4-1

3: Radio says Gallo, who started out in Texas, has never owned a truck or been on a dirt road. I'm calling bullcrap on Gladden for that. Gallo is from Nevada; that state has plenty of dirt roads. Incidentally, Stathead tells us he was one of three players to ever total 100+ walks and 200+ Ks in a season; the others were Aaron Judge and Adam Dunn.

The Twins load 'em up with two outs again, this time for... Gallo. He goes down looking, and gets mad because strike two was very high. Home plate ump Carlos Torres gives him the boot. And then Baldelli.

4: Jordan Luplow comes in for Gallo, as Michael A. Taylor was a late scratch. And Sonny Gray plunks Garver on the first pitch. Surprisingly, he gets a warning and isn't tossed. Dunning had plunked Jeffers last inning, but he's been wild anyways, so it was possibly just an accident by Gray.

In any case, Dunning walks two more Twins, but Royce Lewis can’t make make those walks haunt.

5: Gray leaves a runner on second for the third time this game; Texas is 0-7 with RISP.

Dunning out, lousy 2019 Twin Martín Pérez in. He is better than that here.

6: Wallner makes a nice catch at the wall, because of his name. Some tacky fans boo Garver for no good reason. Pérez continues to not stink.

7: Gray strands another RISP, and Carlos Correa hits a dong worthy of his Houston days. Wallner is plunked by Pérez and scores on Jeffers's RBI. There's the Pérez we remember! His relief help isn't, and Edouard Julien goes yard. Twins hopefully won't need the good relievers tonight, up 10-1

8: It’s master polluter Cole Sands to give up a meaningless run here. Nobody's stepped it up in the long relief role all season. Max Kepler strokes his team-leading 21st dong. Twins 12-2

9: Better this time, Cole. Twims wim! Cleveland now 6.0 GB.

Studs: Gray, and how every Twins batter had a hit, if they weren't playing CF

COTG: Joeyself for suggesting that both teams need to "take a grow-up pill" rather than plunking each other, and LandOfSkyBlueWatersGopher for a cheery update on beating another Texas team.

It'll be Joe Ryan off the IL tomorrow at 6:15 against very veteran Max Scherzer.