PHOENIX – Sorry, Buddy Kennedy, the Twins are leaving town. You'll have to get to Cooperstown without them.
On Friday, the Arizona infielder made his major league debut, grounding a ball through the infield for his first big-league hit. On Saturday, the rookie — who attended the same New Jersey high school as Mike Trout — collected his first extra-base hit, a triple to center field, and scored the Diamondbacks' lone run. But that was just the warmup for the dream that Kennedy lived out on Sunday.
With more than a dozen friends and family members making a ruckus behind home plate and a teammate occupying every base, Kennedy turned on a high 3-0 fastball from Caleb Thielbar and launched it into the left-field seats, the last and most emphatic of Arizona's four home runs in a 7-1 blowout at Chase Field.
Living out a Disney movie, Kennedy pumped his fist as he rounded the bases and jumped out of the dugout to acknowledge chants of "Bud-dy, Bud-dy!" Living out a Hitchcock movie, the Twins packed up and left the desert with two ugly losses in the three-game series and a one-game lead in the AL Central with chief challenger Cleveland headed to Minnesota.
That it was home runs that did all the damage Sunday was particularly surprising. Starter Chris Archer hadn't given up a home run in his past six starts, second-longest streak of his career, and Griffin Jax and Thielbar had each gone nine straight appearances without one, streaks stretching nearly a month.
Yet Christian Walker connected twice against Archer, a pair of solo shots that first tied the game and then gave Arizona the lead. Pavin Smith, batting just .188 entering the game, ambushed a Jax fastball and belted a 420-footer. And Kennedy, given the green light on 3-0 in just his third MLB game, took advantage of Thielbar's control problems and pummeled a fastball into the seats.
The Twins, just as they did Friday against Madison Bumgarner, scored in the first inning, then found it difficult to add on to their lead. This time, the silencer was righthander Merrill Kelly, who gave them far fewer opportunities than Bumgarner did. After Luis Arraez led off the game with a double and scored when Carlos Correa hit into a double play, the Twins never again advanced a runner to third base.
