SAN DIEGO — Sonny Gray played an important role, and Byron Buxton, too. Carlos Correa gave the Twins some room, and Jhoan Duran helped make it stand up.
But don't overlook the athletic — well, that's probably not the right word — contribution of a 63-year-old veteran of 34 MLB seasons in the Twins' 7-1 victory over the Padres on Saturday.
Crew chief Jerry Layne pivoted to his right in the seventh inning, took a small but urgent hop, and made the defensive play of the game for the Twins, knocking down Jurickson Profar's all-but-certain game-tying single. The umpire's unintentional collision with the baseball ended the play, allowed Profar to take first base and, far more importantly, prevented speedy C.J. Abrams, under MLB rule 5.05(b)(4), from scoring from second base and tying the 2-1 game, as he surely would have.
Profar gestured in disbelief as he ran to first base, and the crowd of 39,574 booed vociferously. And it only got worse when Griffin Jax entered the game and struck out Manny Machado and retired Eric Hosmer on a popup to end the inning with the Twins still leading.
Perhaps energized by their incredible good fortune, the Twins immediately erupted with their biggest inning in two weeks, collecting five runs on five hits against relievers Adrian Morejon and Dinelson Lamet to avoid their first four-game losing streak of the season.
Even better, the odd victory re-established the Twins' two-game lead in the AL Central over the Guardians, who lost at Tampa Bay.
Buxton homered for the second straight day and third time in four games, this time ricocheting a ball off the Western Metal Supply building in left field, a 434-foot blast that gives him 26 on the season. Correa has exactly half as many, after rifling a pitch from Morejon over the center-field wall to trigger the eighth-inning avalanche.
Jose Miranda added an RBI single during the inning, and Nick Gordon bounced a ground-rule double into the seats to score Miranda. It was the largest inning the Twins have ever enjoyed at Petco Park, where they are now 7-2 in their history.
The game was a welcome respite from the daily blowups by Twins starting pitchers, who had allowed a total of 21 runs in three games since Gray's last start. Gray was far from perfect — at least one runner reached base in each of his five innings — but he pitched out of trouble each time.
With one exception: A third-inning sinker to Manny Machado appeared well-placed on the inside corner, until the All-Star third baseman timed it perfectly. Machado's smash landed in the left-field seats almost 400 feet away, his second straight game with a home run.
Gray threw only 79 pitches, but Baldelli chose to trust his bullpen with four innings and a one-run lead. Throwing errors in the sixth and seventh innings — one by Emilio Pagan and one by Correa — endangered that lead, but each time, the resulting runner advanced no farther than second base, the latter case thanks to Layne's reflexes.
