MINNEAPOLIS — It's a baseball truism rooted in common sense. Never make the third out of an inning at third base, the tradition goes, because you're just as likely to score from second base on a two-out hit.
So it was perfectly reasonable and understandable that Luis Arraez, having just restored the Twins' lead in a back-and-forth game with a two-out liner that bounced off the bullpen wall, slowed up as he approached second base Friday night.
But it sure would have been fun, wouldn't it, if Arraez had kept tearing around the bases and tried for third?
Alas, Arraez settled for a double to go with the two triples he had already slugged, and the Twins beat Cleveland, 8-7, at Target Field. Arraez made himself the 26th Twins player ever to triple twice in a game, the first since Ehire Adrianza four seasons ago, and drove in three runs as the Twins halted their two-game losing streak.
But by playing smart baseball, Arraez missed becoming only the fourth major leaguer in the past quarter-century, and just the third Twin ever, to triple three times in a game. As the first two games of this series have reminded Minnesota, the Twins not long ago possessed a left fielder who occasionally would eschew the safe play for the showy, the brainy play for the breathtaking.
And by coincidence, that former outfielder, Eddie Rosario, helped build the lead on Friday that his sort-of successor, Arraez, helped erase.
One night after driving in the go-ahead runs in the eighth inning to beat his old team, Rosario broke a 5-5 tie with a fifth-inning home run into the last row of seats down the right-field line, a ball that traveled 374 feet in distance and what seemed like an equal number in height.
But that lead only lasted a half-inning, until a two-out single by Nelson Cruz tied the game. That set up one final Rosario-eque moment by Arraez, who had already thrilled the Target Field crowd with a sliding catch as he crossed the foul line, and two three-base hits, doubling his season total. The first, leading off the bottom of the first inning, fooled right fielder Josh Naylor and rolled to the wall and Arraez rounded the bases. He scored on Josh Donaldson's sacrifice fly.
The second one came in the third inning, a long liner that fell between Bradley Zimmer and Harold Ramirez in left-center and reached the bullpen fence, scoring Anderson Simmons. Josh Donaldson drove him in with a single, and Alex Kirilloff completed the four-run inning.
It was the final coulda-been triple — OK, a clutch, two-out stand-up double — off reliever Nick Wittgren that put the Twins ahead for good, carrying past Zimmer in center field and sending Nick Gordon and Simmons home.
Though Cleveland homered four times, Arraez's final big hit was all the support the Twins' relief corps would need to complete a bullpen-game victory, started by Danny Coulombe and featuring 4 1/3 innings by Griffin Jax, pitchers who weren't on the roster two days earlier.
