The Twins snapped a five-game losing streak with a 3-2 victory in St. Louis Tuesday night.
The game-changing play came in the seventh inning when Donovan Solano pinch-hit for Joey Gallo and delivered with a two-run single that plated both Jorge Polanco and Matt Wallner, who had singled and doubled earlier in the inning.
Minnesota’s only other run of the night came in the fifth inning when Ryan Jeffers scored on a throwing error by Cardinals second baseman Tommy Edman.
Three runs was just enough offense with Pablo Lopez tossing six innings of one-run ball and a trio of relievers closing the doors in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, although it wasn’t without drama.
Emilio Pagan pitched a clean seventh, Griffin Jax gave up a pair of hits but went unscathed in the eighth and then Jhoan Duran, who was nearly unhittable all season before struggling to the tune of a 6.52 ERA in July, gave up a solo home run to Tyler O’Neill with one out in the ninth.
Credit to O’Neill, who took a 102 mph fastball on the outside corner to the opposite field with just enough power to sneak it over the wall into the bullpen.
Duran followed up by striking out Jordan Walker on five pitches, throwing him five straight splitters, the last three of which all were clocked at 100.1 mph. Duran closed the game by striking out Alec Burleson on three pitches, the last on a nasty curve ball that Burleson didn’t come close to hitting.
The win coupled with the Cleveland Guardians being no-hit by Framber Valdez and the Astros has the Twins’ lead in the AL Central back up to two games.
Up next: Twins at Cardinals, Wednesday at 6:45 p.m.
