The Twins held off the Yankees' late efforts and won by way of a Victor Caratini walk-off.
It took a 13-inning effort, but the Minnesota Twins battled to outlast the New York Yankees in a 5-4 victory on Wednesday afternoon, ultimately avoiding a series sweep.
Minnesota had taken a 2-0 lead to the top of the ninth inning, looking to be on the verge of a shutout that was backed by six scoreless innings from starter Zebby Matthews. However, a late implosion with Yoendrys Gomez on the mound brought the game level.
Down to the Yankees’ last out, Anthony Volpe swatted a two-run double into the right-center gap, knotting the game at two runs each. From that point on, the two teams went back-and-forth in extra innings.
In both the 10th and 11th innings, the Yankees put a run on the board before the Twins would match it to force the game to go longer. After the Twins’ bullpen shut out the Yankees in the 12th and 13th innings, the Twins rode a 13th inning walk-off RBI single from Victor Caratini to victory.
Twins manager Derek Shelton was pleased with the gritty effort from his squad on Wednesday, that wouldn’t have been possible without the contributions of some players who stepped up.
“We’ve talked about this group being resilient, we’ve talked about battling through some adversities,” Shelton said, according to Twins.TV. “Definitely some unsung heroes today – what Travis Adams did, Brooks (Lee) came off the bench, Tommy Nance coming in there. You don’t see that many innings in an extra innings game that go for zeroes.”
Though Minnesota bounced back to tie the game twice by way of timely hitting, it was the back half of the Twins’ bullpen that kept them competitive in the ballgame.
Shelton tabbed reliever Travis Adams to open the top of the tenth inning on the mound. Although a run came across twice with the help of the ghost runner with Adams on the mound, no runs he allowed were earned in a three-inning outing from the right-hander. Tommy Nance took over in the 13th inning, shutting the Yankees down and setting up the late finish.
Caratini led off the bottom half of the inning, pinch-hitting for Austin Martin. With no outs, his job was to try to find a way to keep the line moving by putting the ball in play — which he did, hitting a ground ball just past the glove of shortstop George Lombard Jr. and paving the way for Luke Keaschall to come home and score.
“That’s a big at-bat right there, He’s just trying to move the guy… when you put the ball in play things happen. (Keaschall) did a nice job reading it and getting there. Overall just really proud of the entire group.”
