The Twins scored first in the 1st with a homerun by Aaron Hicks, his 10th of the season. KC came back to tie it at one in the home-half of the 1st, and didn't score another run until the 7th. Between those two runs, the Twins added five more, with Eduardo Escobar notching 3 hits, 3 RBI's, a 2B and a walk. Since taking over as the primary SS at the end of July, Escobar is slashing .313/.375/.565 with 19 extra base hits, 18 RBI and a 1.548 WPA. Nice.
Also kinda fun - with his homerun yesterday, Hicks is the 5th Twins player with double-digit homeruns this year, and Rosario (9), Escobar (9) and Mauer (8) are all within striking distance.
Also showing up to play was pitcher Tommy Milone who went 7 innings, allowing only 2 runs on 6 hits while striking out 4. After a rather average August (1-1, averaging only 5.1 innings per start and 2.6 ER's per start) Tommy has now put together back-to-back 7 inning starts in September, earning his 7th & 8th wins of the season and dropping his ERA to a career best 3.54.
Minnesota is 6-4 over their past 10 games, 1.5 behind Texas for the 2nd Wild Card spot (and 2 games ahead of the Angels).
Not only did KC not score between the first and the seventh, after a leadoff single in the second they didn't get a hit until the seventh.
Always nice to play a slumping squad when your team really needs wins to stay in the hunt for October baseball. Even better when your team takes advantage.
Sadly, that even though they're only 1.5 behind Texas, mlb.com has the Twins with a 16.9% shot at the post season, but the Rangers at a 52.1% chance at the post season (a 40.3% chance at a Wild Card spot) as they're only 2 games behind Houston in the AL West race.
Happily, the Twins are still in contention for a shot at the playoffs, and it's after Labor Day!
We get a little bit of schedule relief compared to Texas. We have 5 games left with a somewhat slumping KC, including the last series of the season (at home) when they'll be resting guys and lining up their rotation for the playoffs. We have one more series with the Angels, then it's a bunch of Sox, Tigers and Indians. Texas still has 7 games with Houston and 4 games with the Angels, so that race could tighten considerably before the end of the month (only 5.5 games separate the 3 teams now).