The Minnesota Twins’ misery against the New York Yankees continued on Wednesday night as a grand slam from Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Gerrit Cole’s 14 strikeouts led New York to a 7-1 victory and a sweep of a day-night doubleheader.
A Twin for roughly 24 hours last March, Kiner-Falefa has terrorized his former team during this series. He entered the four-game set with a .317 slugging percentage but after hitting a home run on Tuesday night, he broke the game open in Wednesday’s nightcap with a fourth-inning grand slam.
Kiner-Faleft the ballpark đź’Ş pic.twitter.com/QMswk3HSMu
— New York Yankees (@Yankees) September 8, 2022
That allowed Cole to seek his own revenge after the Twins smashed five home runs off the Yankees ace in their last meeting on June 9. Although Carlos Correa touched Cole for a solo home run in the third inning, nobody else could get their bat on the ball as Cole forced 23 swings and misses on a season-high 118 pitches.
The Twins mounted a rally after Cole left the game with two outs in the seventh inning, but Correa struck out on four pitches to end the threat.
https://twitter.com/tteberry/status/1567701035413635073
This season with runners in scoring position, Isiah Kiner-Falefa has now hit more homers against the Twins than Carlos Correa has hit for the Twins.
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) September 8, 2022
The Yankees piled on from there, using a bases-clearing double by former Twin Aaron Hicks in the eighth inning to hand Minnesota its tenth straight loss (including playoffs) at Yankee Stadium and their 16th loss in their past 18 meetings with the Yankees.
The Twins will try to avoid the sweep on Thursday night when Sonny Gray takes on Nestor Cortes.
