Solano (4-for-5) leads ‘unrelenting’ offense as Twins take nail-biter

ARLINGTON — Once the mud lastly settled from a 10-inning, back-and-forth affair between the Twins and Rangers on Saturday night time, it was Minnesota that reigned supreme.

After discovering themselves in an early four-run deficit, the Twins’ offense caught hearth to finish the comeback, beating the Rangers, 9-7, at Globe Life Field.

• Games remaining: at TEX (1), at CLE (3), vs NYM (3), vs TB (3), at CWS (4), at CIN (3), vs LAA (3), vs OAK (3), at COL (3)

• Standings replace: With the Guardians additionally profitable on Saturday, the Twins maintained a five-game lead for the American League Central title. Minnesota (71-65) is the third-seeded division winner, which means the membership would host a three-game Wild Card Series vs. the ultimate AL Wild Card entrant.

Donovan Solano was the driving power behind the comeback effort, because the infielder tied a profession excessive with 4 hits — together with a solo dwelling run — and drove in three runs towards Texas.

“He was unbelievable today,” Twins supervisor Rocco Baldelli mentioned. “It’s loopy as a result of he was sick as a canine yesterday. I imply, he was extraordinarily sick. We even needed to ship him dwelling as a result of he wasn’t in a position to play.

“Then he came in today and said he’s feeling better. He’s definitely not 100 percent, but his health improved and he came ready to play. He’s been raking all year, and tonight was more of the same of what we’ve seen from him.”

Solano’s Statcast-projected 403-foot blast got here within the high of the third inning and gave the Twins their first run of the sport.

“I’ve worked a lot on my routine,” Solano mentioned. “I’m just trying to hit the ball hard. When I hit the homer, I didn’t expect it to go that far and was surprised it went into the second deck.”

The following inning, Minnesota’s offense erupted for 5 runs on 4 hits and two walks to power Texas southpaw Jordan Montgomery out of the sport early.

Impressively, every of these 5 runs got here with two outs. After Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa had been retired to start out the body, Jordan Luplow reached safely on a single to middle discipline. Kyle Farmer adopted by drawing a stroll earlier than Ryan Jeffers scored Luplow on a single to left discipline.

After Matt Wallner walked to load the bases, Michael A. Taylor scorched a two-run double to left discipline to tie the sport, 4-4. With runners on second and third, Solano delivered a two-run single to offer the Twins their first lead of the ballgame.

“Our offense was unrelenting,” Baldelli mentioned. “We put together great at-bats. A lot of guys had great at-bats. Solano led the way, but we had a lot of guys that played great.”

The lead didn’t final, although, because the Rangers tacked on two extra runs to push the sport to additional innings.

In the highest of the tenth, the Twins received one of the best of hard-throwing lefty Aroldis Chapman, scoring three runs earlier than Jhoan Duran allowed only one run within the backside of the inning to shut out the sport.

With Saturday’s nail-biter of a victory, Minnesota gained its second sequence towards Texas within the final week.

“When you’re playing a close game and lose the lead late, there’s some teams that would let that get them down,” Baldelli mentioned. “Some teams wouldn’t be able to recover, but we recovered. We just found a way today against a good team. I was very impressed with how we played today.”