MINNEAPOLIS _ In order to save their energy and nurse their injuries, the Twins have canceled batting practice this weekend. Well, except during the actual games.
Minnesota's offense, absent for intermittent stretches during its series in Oakland, returned home for a day-late fireworks show on Friday, adding a historic dimension to the usual blasts. Luis Arraez, Jorge Polanco, Jonathan Schoop and Mitch Garver all homered, the Twins set a new franchise high for doubles in a game, and the Twins handed the Rangers a 15-6 loss at Target Field.
The four blasts, three of them launched more than 400 feet, gave the Twins 165 home runs on the season, still the most in baseball _ and not just this year. Minnesota has now hit more home runs before the All-Star break than any team ever has, eclipsing the Yankees' total of 162 last year.
And those home runs were only part of the Twins' rock-and-roll offense. The Twins collected doubles by the bushel, nine in all, eclipsing the eight they had on April 17, 2007. The 13 extra-base hits? Done only once before, in their eight-homer game in Baltimore in April.
As the Twins, road-weary and almost universally nicked by one minor injury or another, near a four-day break from one of the best starts they've enjoyed in years, they needed a blowout victory like this one. They've beaten an opponent by a half-dozen runs 17 times this season, but only once before Friday in the past four weeks. Sensing a need for energy, and after arriving home from the West Coast after midnight the night before, manager Rocco Baldelli told his team that any pregame work this weekend is up to them.
Perhaps the Twins' second inning was a thank you to their manager. Or maybe it was just pent-up frustration from going 4 for 25 with runners in scoring position over three days in Oakland. Whatever the ignition, the detonation was intense. Rangers starter Adrian Sampson was the victim, allowing 11 hits while recording only 10 outs.
Garver doubled to open the second inning, and Marwin Gonzalez, back from a sore toe, singled him home. After a double play, Arraez hit his second career home run, depositing Sampson's pitch onto the plaza in right field.
Schoop and Byron Buxton followed with doubles, Max Kepler singled, and Polanco drove a pitch onto the grass beyond the center-field fence. And when Nelson Cruz stretched a line drive down the left-field line into a double, the Twins had matched a franchise record that's 53 years old: The last time (and only other time) they bashed six extra-base hits in an inning came against the Kansas City A's on June 9, 1966.
Martin Perez, who spent the first 11 seasons of his professional career in the Rangers' system, showed off his newfound effectiveness for six innings, allowing only four hits and just one Ranger to advance as far as third base. But he tired in the seventh inning, surrendering a walk and three more hits, each of whom scored, as Texas tried to rally.
The Rangers' five-run outburst, capped by a Shin-Soo choo home run off Ryne Harper, was a spirited but futile effort, however, because the Twins simply kept tagging more runs on to their total. Garver's homer off lefthander Brett Martin ignited a three-run seventh, and doubles by Gonzales and Cron set off a three-run eighth as the Twins increased their AL Central lead over the idle Indians to 6 { games.
The lone hiccup: Cruz left the game after two at-bats, having experienced discomfort in his right heel. The Twins said the injury is minor, and Cruz is day-to-day.
