MINNEAPOLIS _ The Twins' two most expensive free-agent acquisitions last winter cost a combined $99 million, though it's a rather lopsided split. In their first game in their new home park, those big investments began paying dividends on Tuesday night.
Homer Bailey, the $7 million righthander, gave up two runs over five innings in his Minnesota debut, and Josh Donaldson, who will collect the other $92 million (at least) drove in a two runs with a sacrifice fly and an opposite-field home run, and the Twins held on to beat the St. Louis Cardinals 6-3 to win their Target Field opener for the fourth consecutive season.
Cleanup hitter Jorge Polanco also provided his first home run of the season, crushing a Carlos Martinez pitch onto the vacant right-field plaza to cap the Twins' five-run second-inning outburst.
The Twins battered Martinez, who is returning to the St. Louis rotation this year after serving as the Cardinals closer last season, with six hits in the first two innings, and Donaldson ended his night two innings later by lifting a middle-of-the-plate fastball onto the overhang in right field. It was the 11th Target Field homer in Donaldson's career, but the first that produced cheers by the home crowd.
Wait, no it didn't. Target Field was eerily empty, as it figures to be throughout this nine-week season, and though all the usual trappings of Opening Day were in evidence _ bunting draped over the upper decks, the teams lined up along the baselines for introductions, even an Air National Guard flyover _ each pivotal moment was greeted only by fake and faint cheers.
Or, in the case of Byron Buxton's not-quite-a-catch of a Tommy Edman home run in the eighth inning, total silence, except for a rousing round of applause from the St. Louis dugout.
The Twins' 60th home opener in Minnesota began with plenty of ceremonies, remembrances and demonstrations, including manager Rocco Baldelli, six players and a coach kneeling during the national anthem, all of it for a television audience instead of a live one. Then the game began and quickly settled into the pattern of the Twins' season-opening series in Chicago: Big inning early, and little chance of change in the outcome as the game wore on.
Donaldson, who had only one hit in Chicago, equaled that total in his first at-bat, dribbling a grounder just past Martinez and racing to an undefended first base. A Polanco single and an errant pickoff throw moved runners into scoring position, and an intentional walk loaded the bases, but the threat was extinguished when Mitch Garver grounded sharply to third.
The second inning made up for the lost opportunity. Luis Arraez led off with a single, Miguel Sano doubled, and Byron Buxton drove in first run in his 2020 debut by hitting a ground ball that Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong unwisely threw to the plate, too late to get Arraez. Max Kepler singled home Sano, and Donaldson drove home Buxton from third with a warning-track fly ball to right.
Polanco then followed with a 376-foot blast onto the plaza, giving the Twins a five-run lead for the third time in four games.
Bailey gave up a mammoth blast, too, an upper-deck shot in the fifth inning by Cardinals outfielder Tyler O'Neill, but finished with only four hits allowed, a impressive debut.
From there, the bullpen took over. Veteran Tyler Clippard pitched the sixth inning, and Cody Stashak followed his two-inning shutout performance on Friday in Chicago with a scoreless seventh.
Trevor May gave up the home run to Edman that Buxton couldn't quite snare, but the righthander followed that with three strikeouts. And Sergio Romo finished the Cardinals off in the ninth inning to earn the Twins' first save of the season.
