Make It Official! Twins 8, Athletics 7: Your Money’s Worth and More – Twins

Box Score:
Starting Pitcher: Chris Paddack: 2 1/3 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 1 BB, 0 K (46 Pitches, 31 Strikes, 67.4%)
Home Runs: Royce Lewis (7), Trevor Larnach (7), José Miranda (7)
Top 3 WPA: Miranda 0.267, Josh Staumont 0.194, Griffin Jax 0.160
Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs):

At the very bottom of it, under all the complexities and loyalties and emotional superstructures we lay on top, you go to the park to see a major-league game in the hopes of seeing a special ball player do something truly special. Through a huge number of complex interactions between on-field talent and front-office machination; through the vicious emotional wreckage of a protracted playoff losing streak and seasons ruined by injuries to talented players; and through plenty of well-earned grumbling about a family of billionaires refusing to invest the way they should have in a team with a chance to break through, the last half-decade has featured a lot of chances to step through the gates of Target Field and see something truly special. Right now, that’s Royce Lewis, and what he’s doing might be not only the most special thing the Twins have offered their fans this side of Joe Mauer, but one of the most remarkable things anywhere on any MLB diamond.

Lewis entered Sunday’s doubleheader having played 10 games this season and clubbed five home runs. Then he homered in the first game, on the heels of Carlos Correa‘s first-inning two-run shot. It’s not just that Lewis is doing this, but that he’s doing it yet again, coming back over and over from injuries ranging from significant but moderate to career-threatening and slugging like he hadn’t missed a single game. There are very few examples of this kind of relentless offensive explosiveness from a player whose career is disrupted as often and as momentously as Lewis’s has been; the ones that do exist are folk heroes. Think Bo Jackson. Think Josh Hamilton. Think Mickey Mantle.

When Lewis stepped in for his turn in the first inning of Game Two, you could feel that slight gather of breath in the sparse but buzzing crowd–that unfair but happy expectation that somehow, in defiance of the law of averages and the mathematical gravity of the game, the guy in the box is going to put on his cape again and be super. It’s a nearly forgotten sensation, in this day and age. Fans know better. The stats and their weight sit front and center in front of the game with us. Plus, the run environment has transformed. We’re more than a quarter-century past the last expansion of the league, and almost 20 years clear of what I call the Double Expansion Era (but which others call the Steroid Era). If you didn’t grow up watching Ken Griffey Jr., Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, and Barry Bonds, you can’t quite imagine how much people expected of them every day, and how (improbably) they kept meeting those insane expectations. No player since 2010 has had the same kind of anticipation attached to them, because no one has conditioned people to feel that way.

Lewis is becoming the exception. Your brain knows he can’t homer in every game, let alone every time he steps to the plate, but it’s increasingly difficult to banish the tickle of hope from your mind, because he keeps beating the odds and blasting the ball.

That’s why fans got even more ecstatic than usual when Lewis launched a long fly ball down the left-field line, and were more than usually crestfallen when it hooked just foul. For a moment, it felt like another proof of Lewis’s exceptionalism. Then, it was just a strike, and (how cruel!) fans knew they might have to wait another few innings to see their hero hit a dinger that counted.

Or, you know, he could do it on the next pitch.

Fortunately, Louie Varland restored order. Taking over for Paddack, he pitched out of a third-inning jam, then gave the team four scoreless innings before cracking a bit in the seventh. It was an impressive showing from Varland in his second outing of the week, helping patch and fill some innings for the busy staff, although he still hasn’t faced a truly MLB-caliber lineup since he was demoted to St. Paul in the first place.

Lewis wasn’t alone in slugging in the nightcap for the Twins. Trevor Larnach launched a huge three-run homer in the bottom of the second, and the team pushed across single runs in the third and sixth that looked like they might stand up. Instead, after Varland wobbled badly in the seventh, the game came down to the final two frames. José Miranda had pinch-hit for Larnach in the sixth, and he came up again in the eighth. He put the right finishing touch on the masterpiece of a game Lewis started painting in the first.

That just left a relatively easy clean-up for Griffin Jax, and he finished the sweep ably. The Twins are winners of five games in a row, and the vibes are very, very good.

What’s Next: After an off day Monday, the Twins will welcome the Rays to town for a three-game set, with Pablo López starting the series opener. Longtime AL Central nemesis Aaron Civale will start for Tampa.

Postgame Interviews:

Bullpen Usage Chart: