Yankees outlast Twins to win game of the year, 14-12

You genuinely might not see a more ridiculous game than this one.

For the first eight innings, it appeared the Twins had this game in hand. They at one point led 8-2, and while the Yankees did cut into that, they were down to their final six outs and had stranded in the previous two innings. They weren’t out of it, but they might’ve missed their chance.

Then things got nuts.

First, the Yankees put up a five-run eighth inning, capped off by a Didi Gregorius double that gave them their first lead since the third inning. It was only a one-run lead that was promptly flipped when Miguel Sano annihilated a baseball to put Minnesota back ahead. Aaron Hicks followed that with a two-run home run of his own in the top of the ninth, re-taking the the lead for the Yankees. Aroldis Chapman then walked nearly the entire Twins’ lineup and blew a save, making it the fourth consecutive inning in which that happened.

In the tenth, Gleyber Torres came up with the big hit to give the Yankees the lead, which they doubled on a passed ball. It was Adam Ottavino’s turn to save it and he got two outs, but also was wild. Needing just one out, Max Kepler lined a ball towards the gap that look destined to at least tie the game. Instead, this happened.

The Yankees finally won 14-12 in what was an absolutely ridiculous, wild, beautiful, and dumb mess of a baseball game.

Unusually, a somewhat detailed walkthrough of the important events would go here. However, the truly important moments are mentioned above, and this recap would be 2000 words if we actually went though all the scoring and other plays of note. Instead, here are some of the major points:

• Didi Gregorius was excellent for the Yankees, going 5-5 with 7 RBI and a home run.
• Domingo German was not as good, arguably throwing his worst start of the season. He lasted just 3.2 innings, allowing eight runs on nine hits, both of which are the highest totals he’s allowed this year.
• In “pitching wins are kinda dumb sometimes” exhibit 9000, Chapman got the win in this game despite throwing just 12 of 29 pitches for strikes.
• The Twins are a very good baseball team and playing them in a playoff series would be terrifying. They hit another four home runs tonight, including two moonshots from Sano.
• Gary Sanchez struggled again, and got hurt running to first base in his final action of the night. He is now likely headed to the IL.

The official time on this game was 5:03 but it felt like longer. As said above, you probably won’t see a game more ridiculous than this one for a while. That’s probably a good and bad thing.

Box score.