MINNEAPOLIS _ The Twins swatted four home runs during the first four innings Monday while scoring seven runs and chasing lefthander CC Sabathia from the game. Not the first time the Bombasquad has pulverized so many pitches.
But this game had much, much more than home runs.
The Twins turned a triple play in the first inning _ their first since 2017 and 13th in club history _ and benefited from a catcher's interference in the third with the bases loaded.
All that evidence suggests that everything was going the Twins way Monday. Not quite, because the Yankees are in town. They swatted three home runs of their own in the first five innings.
Halfway through the game, both starting pitchers had been knocked out of the game, the Twins bullpen was tasked with getting the final 15 outs, and the Yankees were putting the heat on the Twins. But Taylor Rogers withstood that heat, getting out of a two-on, one-out jam in the ninth to preserve the Twins' 8-6 win.
It was quite a start to a three-game series that a Twins player admitted before the first pitch it would be a good test of where they stand among the hierarchy of top teams.
Twins lefthander Martin Perez was out of sorts from the start, walking the first two batters to bring Edwin Encarnacion _ whose 16 home runs at Target Field are second most among visiting players.
Perez and Encarnacion dueled for nine pitches before Perez got Encarnacion to tap a change up to third base. Luis Arraez grabbed the ball and stepped on third for the first out, then threw to Jonathan Schoop at second to force out Aaron Judge. Schoop unleased a rocket to first baseman Miguel Sano to retire Encarnacion and finish off the Twins' first triple play since June 1, 2017 at Anaheim when Sano, Brian Dozier and Joe Mauer connected.
Jorge Polanco and Nelson Cruz hit back-to-back homers in the bottom of the inning and the Twins looked on their way. But the Yankees were going to make the Twins work for it. They scored twice in the third to tie the score before the Twins loaded the bases with no outs in the third for Cruz. Cruz fouled off a pitch from Sabathia but clipped catcher Gary Sanchez's glove in the process. Catcher's interference. Cruz was awarded first as a run scored to make it 3-2. Two more runs scored on groundouts, and the Twins led 5-2.
Luke Voit homered in the fourth for the Yankees, but the Twins got home runs from Max Kepler and Mitch Garver in the bottom of the inning to lead 7-3.
And that was all for Sabathia, who is retiring at the end of the season. He made his 40th career start against the Twins on Monday and had never given up more than two home runs in a game against the Twins in the previous 39 outings,
The Yankees kept coming. LeMahieu smashed a two-run homer off Perez in the fifth to pull within 7-5. After Perez walked the next batter, manager Rocco Baldelli removed him for Tyler Duffey, who walked the first batter but got out of the inning.
Michael Tauchman's RBI single off Lewis Thorpe in the sixth to the Yankees within 7-6, firing up thousands of their fans in attendance, but Garver hit his second homer of the game in the bottom of the inning, and the Twins led 8-6.
It marked the eighth time the Twins have hit at least five home runs in a season. Only one other team in major league history _ the 1977 Red Sox _ achieved that.
