MINNEAPOLIS _ An Arcia shaking up the Twins-Brewers rivalry by belting a home run at Target Field that turned a one-run deficit into a lead and a victory? It's happened before, almost exactly five years ago.
The Twins enjoyed that one a lot more.
Orlando Arcia, brother of former Twins slugger Oswaldo, imitated his sibling's talent for the dramatic on Monday by driving a Taylor Rogers pitch into the left-field seats in the eighth inning, a two-run shot that earned Milwaukee a 5-4 victory over the Twins. The loss snapped Minnesota's six-game winning streak and handed the Twins only their second loss this season in a game they led after seven innings.
It also spoiled what the Twins certainly hope is a breakout performance by Michael Pineda, whose gradual improvement as the season has gone on largely missed his starts before the home fans. Pineda entered the game with a 6.20 ERA at Target Field, but delivered his best outing of the season this time. The big righthander faced 21 hitters and retired 18 of them, six via strikeout and the final 12 in a row.
But the only three batters to reach in Pineda's six innings did so right in a row: Keson Hiura led off the third inning with a single, Eric Thames followed with one of his own, and Arcia doubled in a run. Pineda then resumed mowing down the Brewers, though the first two, Lorenzo Cain and Christian Yelich each hit sacrifice flies to drive in runs _ the last scored by Arcia when Byron Buxton's throw from center field struck him in the back as he neared home plate.'
The Twins, though, had scored four runs an inning earlier, and clung to that lead with Pineda on the mound. Six hits in the second inning _ capped by Byron Buxton's three-run smash into the Twins' bullpen _ gave the Twins a cushion that figured to only get bigger. After all, it marked the 21st game in the past 22 in which the Twins had homered, and brought Minnesota's home run total in May to 55, tying the 1964 Twins' own 55-homer May for most ever in a calendar month.
Rogers, though, was ambushed by the brother of a former teammate. After retiring Hiura to end the seventh inning, the left-handed reliever remained in the game in the eighth, and quickly got into trouble. Hernan Perez, batting for Thames, got behind 0-2 but after evening the count, drove a double to center field. And Arcia picked out the second pitch from Rogers and launched it into the seats in left field, the first home run Rogers has allowed since April 2.
By coincidence, next Tuesday marks five years since Oswaldo Arcia homered off Marco Estrada in the same ballpark to turn a one-run Twins deficit into a lead that the Brewers couldn't overcome.
The game ended with a classic power showdown. Brewers' fireballer Josh Hader issued a one-out walk to Jonathan Schoop in the ninth, and C.J. Cron singled. But with the tying run on second base, Eddie Rosario flew out to center, and Miguel Sano struck out on three pitches as the Brewers beat Minnesota for the fourth straight meeting.
Gio Gonzalez started the game for the Brewers and gave up the four-run inning before being removed _ to a noisy ovation from a large group of Milwaukee fans seated behind the Brewers' dugout _ after hitting his pitch count with two outs in the fifth inning, thanks in part to C.J. Cron's 13-pitch at-bat. Jeremy Jeffress relieved and faced only three batters, but it was an eventful trio. First, he walked Miguel Sano, at which point the Twins objected to Jeffress' sleeves, which were the same grey color as Milwaukee's uniforms. Umpire Ted Barrett made Jeffress remove them and put on the contrasting colored sleeves, dark blue, to conform to MLB uniform guidelines.
Jeffress then gave up a single to Max Kepler, but he ended the inning _ and almost his season, perhaps _ when Willians Astudillo lined a come-backer right at Jeffress' head. The pitcher fell back awkwardly and somehow gloved the screamer as he ducked out of the way.
