MINNEAPOLIS _ After a weekend in which their hitting disappeared and the pitching self-destructed, the Twins were confident that sending Ervin Santana to the mound would at least restore half that equation.
They were right. They're hitting again.
Minnesota slugged two home runs Tuesday night inside MLB's new home run capital, Target Field, and the White Sox bashed three. But the Twins' bullpen was solid and Minnesota scored runs late to ice a 9-7 victory.
Santana had not turned in two poor starts in a row all season _ in fact, in the three previous instances when he allowed more than two runs in a start, he had never given up a single run, over 25 total innings, in his follow-up. That pattern didn't hold for a fourth time, however. Santana, who gave up five runs to Seattle last Wednesday, this time surrendered six in five innings _ yet he left in line for a victory, his ninth of the year if the Twins could hold on.
The biggest culprit in Santana's extended difficulty was White Sox first baseman Jose Abreu, who smacked four hits in his first four at-bats, each one traveling a little farther than the last. He singled in the first inning, though Santana worked out of the jam; doubled in a run in the third, mostly because Eddie Rosario made a futile throw to the plate in hopes of catching Melky Cabrera; and doubled off the center field wall in the fourth, though Santana stranded him there.
Abreu then added a capper in the sixth, crushing an Alan Busenitz pitch into the right-field seats, a solo blast that closed the Twins' lead.
It also, at least for the moment, attached an unusual distinction to the Twins' home park: With 119 baseballs sailing into the seats, Target Field now has been the site of more home runs than any park in the majors, one more than Milwaukee's Miller Park.
The Twins have done their share of adding to that number, too, of course, starting with Miguel Sano. The third baseman followed Eduardo Escobar's first-inning double with a cannonshot to the grass berm beyond the center field fence, his 17th of the season. And two innings later, with two runners on base, Kennys Vargas absolutely destroyed a changeup from White Sox starter Derek Holland, a ball that landed in the second deck in left-center field.
The Twins estimated the blast at 475 feet, which would make it, the team said, the third-longest in stadium history, behind only a pair of Jim Thome home runs in 2010 and 2011.
Minnesota had to keep adding on to its lead, though, because the White Sox kept trying to take it back. They managed it in the third, following Abreu's first double. Avisail Garcia hit a home run that hit the facing on the right-field upper deck, scoring two runs, and Matt Davidson made it back-to-back homers by launching a ball into the upper deck in left.
For the Twins, who were outscored 28-8 in a four-game sweep by Cleveland over the weekend, the feeling of scoring a lot of runs must have been a relief. But the pitching meant they couldn't get comfortable.
