MINNEAPOLIS — The Twins had shown no particular ability to beat the White Sox this year. Well, until Tyler Duffey and Rocco Baldelli found a cause for the team to rally around.
It sure worked on Miguel Sano.
The slumping slugger lined a shot into the left-field bleachers, blasted a screamer into the juniper bushes in center field, and, after Duffey and Baldelli were ejected after an apparent retaliation for Monday night's "disrespect," launched a long fly ball into the seats in right-center in the eighth inning for his first three-homer game.
The latter blast scored two runs and Jorge Polanco hit a two-out RBI single in the bottom of the ninth inning for a 5-4 Twins win.
Former Twin Lance Lynn stymied his ex-team — all but Sano — on just five hits over six innings, and Chicago appeared headed victory. And Bailey Ober, an emergency starter summoned from St. Paul after Michael Pineda had a cyst removed from his thigh, allowed four runs over four innings.
The most memorable pitch, however, was the one that Tyler Duffey threw to — or at, the umpires ruled — White Sox designated hitter Yermin Mercedes, who apparently offended the Twins, erstwhile pitcher Willians Astudillo, and his own manager one night earlier by hitting a home run on a 3-0 pitch in the ninth inning of a Chicago rout.
Duffey entered in the seventh and retired Yoan Moncada, then threw a 93-mph fastball at Mercedes' rear end. The batter jumped out of the way, but plate umpire Jim Reynolds huddled with his fellow umpires and agreed that Duffey's pitch was intentional. He was ejected, and then Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was, too.
