MINNEAPOLIS -- It took a while for the Twins’ power to show up on Saturday afternoon, but the homers finally arrived in the late innings -- and oh, did they come in full force.

The Twins again turned Target Field into a launch pad against the most homer-prone pitching staff in the Majors, smashing five homers for the second consecutive game -- with all five coming from the sixth inning on -- as they stormed back from a deficit for a series-clinching, 9-2 victory over the Orioles.

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Max Kepler homered in both the seventh and eighth innings as he went yard for the second straight game and registered the fifth multi-homer game of his career. C.J. Cron went deep for the second day in a row. Marwin Gonzalez and Jason Castro both deposited baseballs in the upper deck in right-center field.

“Yeah, I think that's what our offense is capable of,” Cron said. “We felt pretty comfortable, even down 2-1, that we were going to be able to put some good at-bats together and try to get Jose Berrios a couple of runs there to get him off the hook.”

Twenty-four games into the season, the Twins now have six hitters with at least five homers apiece: Jorge Polanco, Mitch Garver, Eddie Rosario, Nelson Cruz, Cron and Kepler. The Twins have hit 47 homers in 24 games, putting them on an early pace for a record-breaking 317 homers this season. The Twins’ single-season record is 225 homers in 1963, and the MLB record is 267, by the 2018 Yankees.

It’s also worth noting that all of this has come without Miguel Sano, one of the premier power threats on the roster -- and with the ball carrying less in a cold Minnesota spring.

With all that said, it’s tough to imagine the Twins maintaining this level of torrid home run hitting over a full season, especially since 21 of those homers have come in five games against the homer-happy Orioles pitching staff, which has allowed an unsightly 69 long balls in 28 games.

“I think we have a nice balance of different types of hitters in our lineup that are seemingly complementing each other really well right now,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “There's no guarantees that anything like this or anything similar to this is going to last, in any way. But when you do have runs like this it's nice, and you appreciate them as you seen them.”

Even if it won’t always result in the Twins going yard five times every game, Baldelli is encouraged by the quality of at-bats that have been put forth by his aggressive lineup. Though the Twins entered the game seeing the fewest pitches per plate appearance in the Majors (3.68), they have shown several times this series that they can work deep into at-bats when the pitcher so dictates.

“It’s easy to get excited about the home runs, and they’re great, and they help you win games,” Baldelli said. “But I think the at-bats that all of our guys have been having up and down the lineup kind of lead to a good outcome -- a successful outcome -- more than anything else and I think we’re seeing that in these games, where we’re hitting some balls over the fence, but it’s the at-bats earlier in the game that get us to that point.”

As an example, the Twins’ back-to-back-to-back homer barrage in Friday’s first inning came after Polanco battled for an 11-pitch at-bat against Alex Cobb. On Saturday, the Twins worked 17 at-bats of at least seven pitches against starter Dan Straily and reliever Paul Fry in the first six innings.

“There are going to be days where we’re going to make some quick outs and the game's going to go by quickly,” Baldelli said. “But you can see when you do have those consistent good at-bats all the way up and down the lineup, all nine guys, that it does have an effect.”

“As a hitter, the longer the at-bat goes, the more comfortable we start to feel, and we had a lot of good at-bats today,” Cron said.

Berrios turns away from curveball in effective start
In his last start, Berrios felt that the Orioles were sitting on his signature curveball, as he had been tagged for two homers on the pitch. With that in mind, he approached Saturday’s start with a different game plan -- to use the changeup to set up his fastball.

It went according to plan.

Berrios struck out eight without a walk, allowing two runs on six singles and a double in his fifth quality start in six outings. He had thrown his curveball on 37.6 percent of pitches in 2019 entering the game -- more than his fastball -- but only threw it 17 times among his 101 pitches in six innings on Saturday.

"[The changeup is] what we've been working really hard on this past offseason, during Spring Training,” Berrios said. “We're still working on that. I feel really proud and happy when I go out there during the game and throw it. I've seen really good results with the changeup, so I feel great. The only thing I have to do is keep working on that and trying to be more consistent."

The strong outing from Berrios was the latest in a stretch of consistently deep starts from the Twins’ rotation. Minnesota’s starters have recorded at least one out in the sixth inning in 13 of the last 14 games, helping the Twins’ short bullpen weather a grueling stretch of games with sporadic off-days.