Greg Bird 4, Twins 3: The Bird is the word

Greg Bird hit his first big league home run when he took Ervin Santana into the second deck. It was a two-run shot and it was all that the Yankees needed... for the first 5.2 innings. Nathan Eovaldi brought a perfect game into the sixth inning but the Twins knocked him around for three runs without an extra-base hit. Eovaldi had looked absolutely filthy until that point but quickly devolved into the pitcher we all know. The endless stream of base hits returned. Once again, death by a thousand paper cuts.

Naturally, Beltran walked and Bird promptly hit another two-run bomb. This one went into the Yankee bullpen and gave the Yankees a 4-3 lead. The name Wally Pipp was being bandied about on the YES broadcast and while I don't think Mark Teixeira should be afraid of losing his job, the Yankees have a live one one their hands in Greg Bird. Nathan Eovaldi returned for the 7th inning despite a triple digit pitch count and sat down the bottom of the Twins offense in order. His 120th pitch was over 100 MPH. All in all it was a solid outing from Eovaldi, and the hits that plagued him in the sixth were all dribblers with eyes. That's baseball.

Chasen Shreve entered to pitch the 8th and worked around a Joe Mauer infield single to keep the score at 4-3. Bird would bat again in the 8th, but Paul Molitor wisely stepped in to prevent Ervin Santana from facing the young slugger again. Trevor May entered and struck Bird out, and we were all deprived of a third dinger.

Dellin Betances entered for the 9th inning with Andrew Miller unavailable. Betances nailed down the save in 1-2-3 fashion to complete the sweep of the Twins. The AL Central will continue to parade through the Bronx when the Cleveland Indians come to town tomorrow and Ivan Nova faces off with Josh Tomlin.

Box score.