The Twins deliver their third walk-off winner of the week.
The Good Vibes train left the station on May 3rd, and it’s not stopping, and it isn’t coming back. The Twins walked off the Royals for the second straight game, erasing a 4-0 deficit in the middle innings and recording their third divisional walk-off winner of the week.
The script was pretty simple on this one.
The Twins clearly had no interest in leaving Zebby Matthews out for very long today; despite notching nine strikeouts on 81 pitches, he was pulled after four innings, including a two-run Royal third where Maikel Garcia plated a pair on a two-out RBI single with the bases loaded. Kansas City had only gotten a runner to first when the second out of the inning was even recorded; a pesky effort from the heart of their order opened the scoring.
That lead would be doubled in the fifth, when Justin Topa turned in a rare recent stinker for a Minnesota reliever. Allowing four hits in the frame, Topa watched as a Vinnie Pasquantino double plated Jonathan India and made it 3-0; then, a Salvador Perez single scoring Vinnie extended the margin to four.
But the difference between the April Twins and the May Twins is that the May Twins have a little fight in ‘em.
Suddenly ambushing Kansas City starter Michael Wacha, Minnesota finally got on the board with a big fifth inning that began with a frozen rope homer off the bat of center fielder Harrison Bader.
Re-energized, the lineup got to work. Willi Castro got plunked to get a man on, and two batters later, Christian Vazquez singled to move him into scoring position. Trevor Larnach would ground out, nearly killing the rally but advancing both runners nevertheless. It set up an excellent piece of hitting, an opposite-field single on the sixth pitch of the at-bat for Ty France, bringing home two runners with the Royals a strike away from ending the inning.
Three down, one to go.
Ty France is hitting .388 with runners in scoring position and .203 without runners in scoring position.
— Aaron Gleeman (@aarongleeman.bsky.social) 2025-05-24T19:38:45.581Z
And who better to tie it than the scorching-hot, bat-flipping, middle-of-the-order slugger we didn’t realize would be on the roster only a few short weeks ago?
With things squared up in the late innings again, one of the suddenly-scariest bullpens in baseball bore down and got the job done. Jorge Alcala struck out three in a scoreless sixth; Brock Stewart had a great seventh, and Griffin Jax fanned two in a clean eighth.
It was Jhoan Duran who dealt with the only trouble of any non-Topa reliever — he allowed a setup single to Bobby Witt Jr. (0-for-4 with four strikeouts until that at-bat) leading off the ninth. Witt predictably stole second, and saw Pasquantino fill first base behind him on a HBP. With one out, Witt would steal third, but Duran got Garcia on strikes for the second out.
A walk to Mark Canha left no room for error, but Drew Waters topped a splitter straight back to Duran, who cleaned up the 1-3 putout and set up the afternoon’s latest walk-off win.
Facing Daniel Lynch IV, a pair of well-seasoned Twins came off the bench and worked crucial at-bats to make sure the victory could be sealed. First, it was Carlos Correa, walking on seven pitches as part of his leadoff pinch-hitting apperance. Ryan Jeffers would do the same on eight, hitting for Larnach at the top of the order. And after Ty France moved the runners over with a groundout, Brooks Lee sent a huge crowd home happy.
So, peep these standings with your boy real quick. Winning the series early, Minnesota has pushed the Royals to 5.5 back of the Tigers, while climbing to within just 3.5 games of the division lead. They remain 8-2 in their last 10, have swung their run differential to +35 (third-best in the American League), and continue to pace the first Wild Card slot. It’s just about as much fun as this team and this fanbase could be having after an abysmal start to the 2025 campaign.
I won’t even qualify that with an “as long as they can continue” sentence. It’s the summer kickoff weekend. Enjoy the warm vibes.
GO TWINS GO!
STUDS:
RP Griffin Jax (IP, 0 H, 2 K)
1B Ty France (1-for-5, 2 RBI)
SS Brooks Lee (3-for-5, RBI)
2B Kody Clemens (1-for-3, R, RBI, BB, HR)
CF Harrison Bader (1-for-3, R, RBI, HR)
DUDS:
NO DUDS! TWINS WIN! TWINS WIN!