MINNEAPOLIS _ An around-the-horn triple play saved Martin Perez from an early exit on Wednesday. Whether it saved his spot in the Twins' rotation remains to be seen.
Perez allowed hits to four of the first six batters he faced, two of them long home runs, and surrendered seven runs over six rocky innings. The left-hander's winless drought extended past a month as Atlanta pounded its way to an 11-7 victory at Target Field.
The NL East-leading Braves took two of three games in Minneapolis, scoring 26 runs in the series, and left the Twins backpedaling into an important weekend showdown with their closest pursuers, the Cleveland Indians. Cleveland shut out Texas in the first of two games on Wednesday, cutting the Twins' lead to 2{ games with a nightcap still to come.
Atlanta lefthander Max Fried struck out 10 batters and retired the first nine Twins he faced before tiring in the sixth inning in 82-degree sunshine. Minnesota mounted a comeback, piling up five hits in the innings, but for the second day in a row, the Twins' offense arrived far too late. Fried owned a 7-0 lead as he took the mound in the sixth, not quite as large as Atlanta's 11-0 mid-game advantage on Tuesday. And though Miguel Sano, C.J. Cron and Jake Cave all drove home runs, the Braves' bullpen kept the Twins from threatening any major rally until it was too late.
Sano launched his 20th homer of the season with two outs in the four-run ninth inning, a three-run shot that was the Twins' 224th of the season. That's just one shy of the franchise record set in 1963.
Perez, meanwhile, was aided by a triple play for the second time in four starts. After surrendering solo home runs to Ozzie Albies and Freddie Freeman in the first inning _ Freeman's fourth home run in five career games at Target Field _ and a run-scoring double to Charlie Culberson, Perez got in trouble in the third inning, too, one of the ugliest innings of the Twins' season.
Albies led off with a single, and Freeman hit a sharp ground ball that shortstop Jorge Polanco knocked down but couldn't turn into an out. Josh Donaldson walked on four pitches for the third time in the series, loading the bases and sparking a handful of boos from a large but restless matinee crowd of 35,682. Minneapolis' emergency sirens then began blaring, its routine first-Wednesday-of-the-month test, adding a surreal atmosphere for what came next.
After Albies scored when catcher Mitch Garver allowed a pitch to get past him, Adam Duvall hit a chopper right in front of the plate that Perez rushed to field. His throw to first base was low, and Cron couldn't hold on to it, ruled an error on the first baseman. Then Culverson hit a grounder that deflected off third baseman Sano's glove for a run-scoring infield hit, and Perez walked Johan Comargo to force in another run, making the boos even louder.
But Perez escaped the ugly inning when Tyler Flowers struck a hard two-hopper to Sano, standing one step away from third base. He stepped on the bag, then started a simple 5-4-3 triple play that beat Flowers by two steps, igniting a huge cheer from the crowd. It was the second time this season that Perez was on the mound when the Twins turned a triple play, the last coming on July 17.
It's also the first time since the Twins turned two triple plays in the same game, at Fenway Park on July 17, 1990, that they had recorded two of the plays in the same season.
Had the ball gotten past Sano, at least two runs would have scored, and Perez's day would probably have ended without an out in the third inning. But by escaping the inning, Perez gave the Twins three more, surrendering only another Albies home run in the sixth.
Still, the game was another disappointment for the lefthander, who opened the season in the bullpen and reached the All-Star break with an 8-3 record. Perez has not won since, and though he has turned in two quality starts in his last four games, there was only one in the eight starts before that, and his ERA has spiked to 4.80. Worse, Perez has allowed three home runs in three of his past four starts.
