ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. _ The Twins stormed back from four runs down in the seventh inning on Friday, then took a lead in the eighth on Max Kepler's solo homer.
But Fernando Rodney blew the save in the ninth, and the Twins lost, 8-7, in 10 innings because they seemingly forgot all the pitcher's fielding practice work they put in during spring training.
With runners on first and second, former Twin Denard Span hit a grounder to the hole that Joe Mauer made a diving stop on. He flipped to Zach Duke, who was running toward first.
Duke had enough time to plant his foot on top of the bag, but he missed. Span was safe. Johnny Field, in to pinch run for Wilson Ramos earlier in the inning, had rounded third and scored easily as the Rays won.
Span hit a two-run double in the fifth to put the Rays ahead 3-2. Then right-hander Lance Lynn, who gave up five runs on seven hits and five walks in six-plus innings was knocked out in the seventh as the Rays scored three more runs to take a 6-2 lead.
The Twins looked cooked. Rays ace Chris Archer held them to two runs on four hits over 62/3 innings before handing the game to the bullpen.
Left-hander Jose Alvarado walked a batter then struck out Jason Castro in the eighth before Tampa Bay went with very veteran reliever Sergio Romo. But Romo gave up a single to Brian Dozier and walked Joe Mauer to load the bases.
Romo went into the low 70s with some of his breaking pitches to strike out Miguel Sano.
He tried the same approach with Rosario. Rosario got out in front of breaking ball but got enough of it drive it over the wall for the third grand slam of his career. Rosario looked into the celebrating Twins dugout and shouted as he tied the game.
And Kepler provided the exclamation point when, with one out in the ninth, he connected with a Ryan Yarbrough fastball and sent it down the right-field line and over the wall to put the Twins ahead 7-6.
The Twins were three outs from a win. Two Rodney strikeouts cut that down to one out. But Rodney plunked Carlos Gomez with a 0-1 pitch, then Gomez stole second.
Brad Miller lined a single to center, and Gomez beat Ryan LaMarre's throw home to tie the game.
