The San Diego Padres rallied to beat the Minnesota Twins 5-4 Wednesday afternoon at Target Field.
The loss for Minnesota snapped a string of nine straight Twins wins against the Padres that dated back to the 2008 season.
Seth Smith’s solo home run off of Twins reliever Anthony Swarzak (2-1) in the 10th inning proved to the the difference maker.
Holding a 4-3 lead in the ninth, Twins closer Glen Perkins failed to keep the Padres off the scoreboard. It was just his fourth blown save of the season.
Perkins gave up a leadoff double to Yonder Alonso then walked Rene Rivera with no one out, to get into a jam. After a sacrifice bunt, Evereth Cabrera drove in Alonso to tie the game on a sacrifice fly.
The Twins had a threat in the bottom of the ninth, with runners on first and second and two out, but Padres’ center fielder Will Venable tracked down a deep fly to end the threat.
Smith finished with a pair of hits for the Padres, while Alonso was 3-for-4 in the game.
Trevor Plouffe had a big game for the Twins. He put the Twins on the scoreboard with a two-run home run in the first inning and finished 2-for-4 with three RBIs on the afternoon. Plouffe also led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a walk, but the Twins failed to turn that into a run.
The #MNTwins left 14 runners on base today…
— Tyler Mason (@tylermason21) August 6, 2014
Eduardo Escobar and Eric Fryer also had a pair of hits for the Twins.
The Twins (51-61) hit the road and start a series on Thursday night in Oakland.
