Dozier bomb late lifts Twins over Rays
The Minnesota Twins needed a Doz-bomb late, but they powered through to a victory over the Rays on Saturday afternoon.
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN – The people driving into the stadium and even the security guards at the stadium were talking about the lack of Miguel Sano in the lineup for the Minnesota Twins on Saturday afternoon. Baseball is at a day and age where it is not expected for everyone to play all 162 games, but it was still disappointing to not see the possible MVP candidate in the lineup.
Doubled up with Adalberto Mejia on the mound, not a lot was expected from the Twins for the afternoon. The Twins wouldn’t let down their fans on the Saturday of a holiday weekend, though.
Mejia got off to a rough start, barely getting out of major trouble in the early innings. The Rays would finally strike first in the second inning with a Derek Norris RBI single. The Twins would answer in the bottom of the inning to make it a 1-1 game via an Ehire Adrianza sac fly.
The Rays would get another in the fourth via a Norris sac fly. Again, the Twins answered in the bottom of the inning with a no doubt solo shot from Eddie Rosario.
Even though the Rays only scored two runs in the ballgame, it was not a comfortable start for Mejia. Mejia lasted five innings in the outing and allowed six hits and two walks in a mediocre start at Target Field.
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The Twins would not score any more off of Rays starter Jake Odorizzi. He lasted 5.2 innings and allowed seven hits and four walks on the day.
As seen by the stat line of Odorizzi, the Twins missed multiple chances to score some big runs throughout the ball game. At one point, if Joe Mauer could’ve simply pulled the ball to right, anything merely over the first basemen’s head would’ve scored two runs. The Rays had right fielder Steven Souza Jr. playing in right center and left right field wide open for the Minnesota native but he couldn’t take advantage.
It took until the eighth inning for the Twins to score their winning runs. Two outs and a man on, is when the Twins started the lineup over in the eighth. Leadoff man Brian Dozier was up to bat and that bat he did use. Dozier hit a 424 foot shot to right to give the Twins a 4-2 lead. Byron Buxton would follow two batters later with an RBI single that scored Mauer.
Colby Rasmus tried to kick-start a Rays comeback to no avail. All the Rays could muster out of the ninth inning off of Brandon Kintzler was a solo homer via Rasmus.
As the final out was recorded, the gray skies and very sporadic rain drops turned into blue skies and sunshine, literally, as the first place Twins defeated the Rays by a final score of 5-3.
What’s next for the Twins?
The Twins and Rays wrap up their three game set with the rubber match of the series on Sunday. 1:10 scheduled first pitch from beautiful Target Field in downtown Minneapolis.
Next: Twins management has a big decision to make
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