MINNEAPOLIS — They badgered Jameson Taillon, they battered Nestor Cortes, and on Thursday, the Twins absolutely blasted Gerrit Cole, socking five home runs while making only seven outs against the righthander.
So why, after such an extraordinary performance against baseball's best rotation this season, did the Twins limp away with only one victory?
Because the Yankees get to hit, too.
New York hit four home runs of its own and punished Twins starter Dylan Bundy and a pliable Twins bullpen by scoring in six separate innings, rallying from a four-run deficit to frustrate the Twins once more, 10-7 at Target Field. The Yankees took the series in the Twins' downtown ballpark for the 10th time among their 12 annual regular-season meetings.
In a game of odd and unusual occurrences — a missed-base appeal play by New York was successful, a popup fell untouched between Twins infielders, and Joe Smith committed his first balk in six years — perhaps the most astonishing story was the bizarre ineffectiveness of the Yankees' ace starter and the Twins' most dynamic reliever.
Cole, the AL's highest paid pitcher at $36 million, had never allowed more than three home runs in a game at any professional level. But that changed in a hurry.
Luis Arraez led off the bottom of the first by turning on a changeup and whistling it into the right field stands. Then Byron Buxton crushed Cole's next pitch into the third deck in left field, 422 feet away. And Carlos Correa made it back-to-back-to-back home runs — the first time in Twins' history they had ever started a game that way — with a screaming liner a dozen rows deep in the left-field bleachers.
Buxton added a three-run shot in the second inning, this one merely bouncing off the upper-deck facade in left, giving him 15 homers on the season. And Trevor Larnach unloaded on Cole's 98-mph fastball in the third inning, at 441 feet the deepest blast of the night.
When Gio Urshela followed with a double of his former teammate, Cole's night was finished after seven runs and only 2 1/3 innings, and the Twins had inflicted a 12.66 ERA on the Yankees' three starters this week.
But New York struck back, with Joey Gallow twice launching no-doubt home runs off Bundy. D.J. LeMahieu did the same against reliever Jharel Cotton, and Aaron Hicks connected against Smith in the sixth, tying the game 7-7, and tying the Target Field record for home runs in a single game by both teams: nine, also done in an Astros' win over the Twins (which also included a Correa home run) on May 31, 2017.
In came Duran to pitch the seventh inning for the Twins, an effort to salvage a victory by stifling a relentless Yankee attack. But the fire-balling reliever, who had not allowed a run in more than a month, was turned human by a hot lineup.
Aaron Judge led off with a double off the bullpen fence, and Anthony Rizzo singled him home, though he was thrown out trying to stretch it to a double. Josh Donaldson singled and stole second base, and Jorge Polanco's bad throw allowed Gleyber Torres to reach base. Aaron Hicks followed with an RBI single, and Duran's worst outing of the season was over after only five batters.
The Yankees tacked on another run against Jovani Moran, but the Twins never threatened against New York's bullpen, managing just one hit in the 6 2/3 innings after Cole departed.
