MINNEAPOLIS — As big-dog moves go, as a way to remove any doubt about who's in charge, it's hard to beat the effect that 876 feet of home runs in the first 10 minutes can have.
So it was on Tuesday, when the Yankees, as they have so many times before, made themselves at home at Target Field. Aaron Judge drove Cole Sands' seventh pitch, a helpless fastball in the middle of the plate, halfway up the juniper bushes in center field, 431 feet away. Giancarlo Stanton soon outdid his teammate, launching a blast 445 feet, onto the second deck above the bullpens.
The fireworks concluded, the Yankees proceeded to grind out a fairly standard-issue drubbing of the Twins, 10-4 in their home-away-from-home. New York has lost in Minneapolis only a dozen times in Target Field's 13-year history.
Oh, Minnesota kept the game close for awhile, handing righthander Jameson Taillon, who last week carried a perfect game into the eighth inning, his worst start of the season. They peppered the righthander with nine hits, three of them by Jorge Polanco including an RBI double and a solo home run. They even brought the tying run to the plate as late as the fifth inning.
But another 410-foot rocket, Anthony Rizzo's contribution to Tyler Duffey's burgeoning ERA, bounced off the scoreboard above the right-field stands in the seventh inning, scored three more runs, and ended all doubt. The rest of the night was spent watching the crowd of 27,643 gradually head for the exits, manager Rocco Baldelli among them.
Baldelli was ejected in the seventh inning after home plate umpire Alex Tosi failed to recognize that a Max Kepler foul ball didn't actually touch his bat, but was deflected instead by catcher Jose Trevino's glove. When the rest of the crew didn't overrule the call, Baldelli registered his dissent loudly enough to earn his seventh career ejection, perhaps a reflection of the Twins' eternal Yankee frustration as much as a single mis-called strike.
Sands, thrown into the furnace of facing baseball's best slugging team in his second career start, actually recovered from the explosive start, holding New York scoreless in the second and third innings and holding Judge in the park in the fourth, a run-scoring single the consolation.
Another rookie, Yennier Cano, also stepped up against Judge an inning later. With the bases loaded and Juan Minaya having already walked in a run, Cano was summoned for a rare matchup of No. 99 vs. No. 99. The rookie was the victor, bravely sneaking a 2-2 changeup that Judge swung through to end the inning.
Small consolation, though, for a Twins team that watched two of its former players — Josh Donaldson and Aaron Hicks, batting fifth and sixth in New York's lineup — take part in the Yankees' annual domination. The pair went 3-for-8 with three walks, with Donaldson prompting some booing from the impatient crowd.
