9th straight win unlocks new victory formation for Twins

CHICAGO -- As soon as Jhoan Duran slammed the door on the Twins’ ninth straight victory and slapped hands with catcher Christian Vázquez, he turned around and walked toward the patch of grass behind the mound, where his infielders were gathering with their arms around each other, cheesing for an invisible camera.

Though the newly healthy Duran’s first save of the season was a big part of why his team was celebrating at all, he backed up and pretended to take the photo as part of the Twins’ new celebration debuted after their 6-5, come-from-behind win over the White Sox on Tuesday.

So, what gives? Why doesn’t Duran get to be in the photo after earning the save?

“He only got three outs, so he doesn’t deserve to be in the picture with the guys that played nine innings,” Carlos Correa said with a hearty laugh.

These Twins have been winning more than anyone else in baseball over the last week-plus, continued owners of the longest such streak in the Majors -- so they figure they should be celebrating that, especially since it’s the first time since June 17-27, 2008, that the Twins have won nine in a row.

Correa got together with some teammates in the weight room before the game in an effort to come up with some idea to mix things up from the celebratory huddle circle that Carlos Santana is said to have brought over from his pre-Twins days, and they landed on posing for a mock team photo, with perhaps the designated hitter being the one to take the shot.

And to set the record straight, it was Duran who volunteered that the pitcher should be the odd one out, because that’s what felt right.

“No, no! The pitcher can do it, because the pitcher hasn't been in the game for a long time,” Duran told Correa. “The pitcher came in and threw only one inning. I can take the picture if I pitched that inning, you know?”

Still, Duran probably should have been included, because much of the manner in which the Twins extended this streak -- clutch late swings from a variety of contributors, which on Tuesday included Trevor Larnach, Correa and Max Kepler -- is something they’ve seen throughout these nine games, dating back to their 7-0 triumph over the White Sox on April 22.

But the difference on Tuesday was that, for the first time this season, Duran was there to quell the chaos in the bottom of the ninth, back where he belongs now that he’s healed from an oblique strain that sidelined him for the first month of the regular season.

“It’s not like he’s in the middle of the season where he’s had a few scoreless outings in a row, he’s really sharp,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You’re kind of finding yourself. I didn’t really plan on pitching him in a one-run game for a save in his first outing back, but that’s the way it played out, so he had to go out there and do it.”

That, he did, and it was a needed effort on a night where the Twins had a rather chaotic path to the finish on the pitching side as Baldelli tried to stay away from Griffin Jax and Brock Stewart, who had been pitching the bulk of high-leverage late innings in Duran’s absence.

The Twins did need more clutch late hits, the type they’ve gotten amid this streak, to take two late leads. In the eighth, they turned a 4-3 deficit into a 5-4 lead with a game-tying knock from Correa -- in his second game back from the IL following his intercostal strain -- and a go-ahead single from Larnach.

But the bullpen plan went awry when Cole Sands -- pushed into a setup role -- allowed the game-tying homer to Andrew Benintendi in the eighth, forcing the Twins to also use Caleb Thielbar to escape the jam.

Once the Twins got a Byron Buxton leadoff walk and Manuel Margot single to set up Kepler’s go-ahead sacrifice fly in the ninth for his second consecutive game with a go-ahead RBI in the game’s final inning, they could find that stabilizing force they needed to lock it down behind Duran, off the IL just in time to secure the win, tested in a one-run game right away.

“I loved that because I felt more pressure,” Duran said.

And he’s looking forward to taking more of those celebration photos.

“I think so, yeah,” Duran said. “That's fun. I love it.”