Yankees Rivalry Roundup: Twins rally past Padres

After a nice little sweep against the Athletics, the Yankees came back to earth a bit in their series opener against the Rays last night. The offense was held to just two runs, both scored when it was pretty much already too late. The 8-2 loss got the series off to quite a sour start for the Yankees.

Beyond that, it was a bit of a quiet day in baseball. Including Yankees-Rays, there were only six games played across MLB. Most other teams, including all of the rest of the AL East, had the day off. With that in mind, here’s today’s abbreviated Rivalry Roundup for the couple potentially impactful AL teams that did play yesterday.

Minnesota Twins (21-17) 5, San Diego Padres (19-19) 3

Carlos Correa’s two-out seventh inning double broke a 3-3 tied and propelled the Twins to a win in this interleague matchup.

Fernando Tatís Jr. got the Padres off to the perfect start when he homered on the very first pitch of the game. That began a back and forth day that saw multiple ties and lead changes.

Minnesota answered back in the bottom of the second when Joey Gallo drew a bases loaded walk off Yu Darvish. Both teams then scored a run in the fourth. Juan Soto drove home Manny Machado with a double in the the top half of the inning, and Kyle Farmer answered back with a solo homer in the bottom half of the frame. However, former Yankee Rougned Odor hit a homer of his own in the fifth, putting San Diego back in front.

The game stayed there until the bottom of the seventh, when the Twins had their big rally. With one out in the inning, Minnesota loaded the bases and then scored a run when Max Kepler grounded into a force out at second. While the game was tied, that was also the second out of the inning, and San Diego still had a decent chance to get out of the inning. However, Correa came up big and scored two runs with the double, giving the Twins the lead for good.

Texas Rangers (23-14) 4, Oakland Athletics (8-31) 0

After leaving the Bronx, things have not gotten better for the A’s. As they opened up a series against the Rangers, they were shut down by a dominant Nathan Eovaldi. The Texas pitcher went 8.2 innings, allowing no runs on three hits while striking out a career-high 12, as the Rangers cruised to a win over Oakland.

After a couple scoreless innings, the Rangers got on the board in the fifth. With Josh Jung on with a single, Texas got some assistance from former Yankees prospect Luis Medina. His wild pitch moved Jung up a base, and he came around to score on a Leody Taveras single. An inning later, they got a couple more runs thanks to a Marcus Semien homer, and another Medina wild pitch — this time with a runner on third. In his second career major league game, Medina did technically lower his ERA. The issue is, it fell from 12.60 to 8.18.

After Oakland went to the bullpen, the Rangers still kept going, picking up another run in the seventh inning.

That ended up being plenty enough for the Rangers as Eovaldi was cruising. The closest times Oakland came to scoring were in the seventh and ninth when Brent Rooker and Esteury Ruiz both hit doubles. In the ninth, Eovaldi issued his first walk of the day, which led to his removal after 113 pitches. However, Will Smith finished off the shutout by striking out Rooker.