Carlos Santana hit a sacrifice fly off All-Star closer Kirby Yates in the ninth inning, leading the playoff-contending Minnesota Twins to a 3-2 win over the Texas Rangers on Thursday night in the first game of their series. The Rangers are the reigning World Series champions.
Santana’s deep fly to right-center came after Yates (4-2) walked two batters in a row with one out and then threw a wild pitch.
“He’s seen it all … he really knows what he needs to do,” said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli about Santana. “We don’t need a bomb. We don’t need really anything but a barrel. He got the pitch up and drove it out there. Nice job, professional.”
Willi Castro hit a homer for the Twins (68-53), who are now within four games of the idle Cleveland for the AL Central lead. Minnesota currently holds the American League’s second wild card spot.
The Rangers (56-66) are in third place in the AL West and are 10 games behind Houston, which matches their biggest division deficit this season.
Jorge Alcala (3-3), the third Twins pitcher, retired all three batters he faced. Jhoan Duran struck out two in a perfect ninth inning to earn his 17th save in 18 chances.
“The game starts and there’s runs all over the place, and there’s some hard-hit balls and you’re almost expecting a different kind of ballgame,” Baldelli said.
Adolis García had three hits, marking his fifth time in seven games with multiple hits. He is hitting .484 (15 of 31) in that stretch. His RBI single in the first inning came before Josh Jung’s sacrifice fly put Texas up 2-0.
After scoring runs in the first inning for the first time since July 23, the Rangers had their 10th game this year without scoring again after the first inning. All eight of their hits were singles, ending their longest-active streak in the majors of 39 consecutive games with at least one extra-base hit since June 29.
“We just couldn’t get much going after the first inning. Had a couple chances there and couldn’t get another hit to tack on or add another run or two,” said Texas manager Bruce Bochy. “It’s a tough one. They scored a cheap run there in the ninth.”
Minnesota evened the score in the second inning. Castro’s 10th homer was followed by Kyle Farmer’s triple that bounced off the angled wall in left-center and past center fielder Leody Taveras for an error, allowing Farmer to score.
