Homers, bunts and a wild pitch lift Twins

MINNEAPOLIS -- Seemingly all season, the Twins have been bitten by their lack of execution of the little things, especially in tight games. Thursday night, they finally got one back.

Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli has often spoken of the need for the Twins to put the ball in play and not try to do too much in some of those situations -- and that’s what paid off late in their opener against the Tigers. A bunt single, a two-out, opposite-field knock, a sacrifice bunt, a wild pitch and a botched neighborhood play by Detroit all contributed to the Twins’ come-from-behind, 5-3 victory at Target Field -- and a win for well-executed minutiae.

“Those are the things we talk about,” Baldelli said. “A lot of those are mental-type moves and adjustments and discussions and things like that. One of the most important things we can do is go out there and try to have quality at-bats when we’re asked to do something, when we have a job to do.”

Of course, the homers had their place, too, with young catcher Ryan Jeffers breaking the ice in the fifth with a solo blast and Miguel Sanó crushing a game-tying, opposite-field homer to key Minnesota’s go-ahead rally in the seventh. But on Thursday, the Twins struck that balance, and it paid off.

Tigers left-hander Tarik Skubal didn’t allow a baserunner until Jeffers’ homer, but the Twins got to him late -- and decisively -- in the seventh. Sanó’s game-tying blast was followed by a Max Kepler single to right, and when Gilberto Celestino chopped a grounder to shortstop and Zack Short attempted to start a 6-4-3 double play, second-year umpire Dan Merzel correctly noted that second baseman Willi Castro’s foot had left the bag before he threw to first. Both runners were called safe after replay review.

“It's very hard to tell anything for certain from the dugout,” Baldelli said. “To catch that as it's happening, you don't see that very often by the umpires. It was a very good and accurate call.”

That set the stage for a successful sacrifice bunt down the third-base line by Andrelton Simmons before Kepler scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch. Jorge Polanco brought home an insurance run by making productive contact to the outfield on a 3-0 count for a sacrifice fly, capping the three-run rally.

“That's a big deal for him, confidence-wise, to be able to go out there in a big situation and not worry or say, 'Hey, what if I swing at a ball a little bit up or down, or out of the zone?'” Baldelli said. “Going up there and looking for a good pitch to hit, knowing what he has to do, and then doing it.”

That seventh inning surged the Twins to victory, but it wouldn’t have been possible without a bounceback seven-inning, three-run effort from J.A. Happ -- his first outing of that length since April -- or all of the solid baseball that preceded that comeback, too.

After allowing a two-run homer to Eric Haase in the fourth, Happ ran into trouble in the sixth, when he allowed a trio of soft singles to load the bases before he walked Short with one out to force in a run. On the next play, Castro hit a chopper up the middle with the infield halfway in, and Polanco made a diving stop in front of the second-base bag and glove flipped the ball Simmons, who made the relay for a highlight-reel, inning-ending double play.

“You have to show off for Simba,” Baldelli said. “Simba, even when he's not trying to show it, it's like that humble-brag kind of play that Simba makes all the time. … When Polo is the one making the play and really making it happen, I'm sure he gets a little satisfaction out of it.”

That’s not to mention the two-out, opposite-field RBI single for rookie Trevor Larnach in the sixth off Skubal -- giving him an RBI in six of his last seven games -- that pulled the Twins within a run. It was just another solid situational play in a game finally chock-full of them for Minnesota.

And in a tight affair, those plays made all the difference.

“Happ did a great job, kept us in there, kept us in there long enough to give us a chance for the win, and then we slammed the door on them,” Tyler Duffey said. “It’s a good feeling, too, wire-to-wire, you have a pretty good ballgame, and get a win like that.”