It took 12 innings, four and a half hours and eight pitchers, but the Twins completed their sweep of the Orioles with a 4-3 come-from-behind victory Sunday afternoon in Baltimore.
The game wouldn’t have made it into extra innings if it hadn’t been for Trevor Plouffe, who had an RBI single in the ninth inning to drive home Brian Dozier and tie the game at 3-3, MLB.com reports.
It stayed that way until the 12th when the Twins scored the winning run thanks, in part, to two fielding errors by the Orioles, the Star Tribune reports.
Eduardo Escobar reached second base on a grounder that was mishandled by Manny Machado.
With two outs, the game was in the hands of Shane Robinson. He hit a grounder to third baseman Jimmy Paredes, who bobbled the ball and ended up sending it deeper into short. Escobar raced around from second base to score what ended up being the winning run.
Tommy Milone came on in the bottom of the 12th and earned his first Major League save, retiring all three batters he faced – the last two on strikeouts.
Mike Pelfrey started for the Twins, but he was just one of eight pitchers that worked the game. Closer Glen Perkins pitched in the 11th and ended up getting the win, according to MLB.com.
Perkins has been bothered by a sore neck and wasn’t expected to be ready for at least a few more days. He gave up two hits and had one strikeout.
The four-game sweep of the Orioles has given the Twins a boost in their run for a wild-card playoff spot. Before the series Minnesota was 3.5 games behind Baltimore in the wild card race, but now they’re ahead by a half game.
Minnesota will begin a three-game road series against the Rays on Tuesday with Ervin Santana on the mound.
