Not since last May (the 15th of May, 2013 if you want to get specific) have the Minnesota Twins tallied more wins than losses. That all changed April 17th, less than twelve hours after a snowstorm dropped more than twelve inches of snow in some areas of the Minneapolis metro. This smiting by Mother Nature postponed the second matchup in three game series between the Jays and Twins, forcing a Thursday double header that saw the Target Field grounds crew at the stadium around 4:30am preparing the field for the days contests.

The 12:10pm make-up game was headed by quite the pitching duel: the 2012 Cy Young winner vs. the Twins twenty-six year old “do-or-die” prospect who had so far this season has been the bright spot in the less than stellar starting rotation. R.A. Dickey (1-2), a former Twin in his own right, squaring off against what many Twins fans have seen as a future staple of the rotation in Kyle Gibson (2-0). The duel did not disappoint.

Preceding this game the Blue Jays were riding an active MLB best fifteen series winning streak against the Twins dating all the way back to 2007, but fortunately for the Twins faithful that was all about to change.

The game started off as a scoreless pitching duel between Dickey and Gibson through the first four innings until the bottom of the 5th when perhaps the cold weather began to affect the Jays’ right-hander and his infamous knuckleball.

The inning started out innocently enough with Florimon striking out swinging but consecutive singles by Dozier and Mauer left an RBI chance for Plouffe, which he cashed in with a single to left putting the Twins up by one. After a Colabello walk, a Kubel RBI single scored Mauer and moved the runners up for Josmil Pinto who doubled into center from the DH spot, missing a grand slam chance by less than a foot off the bullpen wall to plate two more runs resulting in a pitching change for Toronto. Suzuki’s sac fly and Hicks’ groundout ended the inning but the damage had been done giving the Twins a five run fifth inning and essentially the game. Two more runs in the sixth combined with Gibson’s stellar eight inning performance (4 H, 4 K, 1 BB, 0 ER) was enough to seal the early victory and bring Kyle’s record to 3-0 with an ERA of just 0.93 good for 4th in the MLB this season.

The second game of the double header started much differently than the first with the Jays scoring two runs in the top of the first on two walks, a single by Encarnacion and a sac fly by Navarro. The damage was slightly offset by yet another Brian Dozier leadoff homer to left field (his fourth of the season and fifth overall tying him for second on the MLB home run list) and the first inning score read 2-1 in favor of the Jays until the fifth inning.

As Pelfrey has been oft to do in his tenure here in Minnesota, he started imploding far before a quality start bid. A harmless pop out from Rasmus to the shortstop began the 5th, and then Mike gave up a deep bomb to Bautista that clanked around the second row of seats in left field giving the Jays a 3-1 lead. After a walk to Encarnacion and a single to Navarro the nightmare was over as Pelfrey was pulled after going just 4 1/3 giving up 4 H, 5 R (4 earned), and posting a 5:1 BB/K ratio which ballooned his ERA to 7.98 in just 10.1 IP giving way to Deduno to close out the inning in relief. The Twins battled back in the bottom of the 5th to score two runs on a Colabello two RBI double to bring the score to 5-3 and so the score remained until the 8th inning which turned out to be one of the most bizarre ever seen in major league baseball history.

Unless you didn’t actually watch the game itself you would never believe the stat line from the Blue Jay’s bullpen. On just two balls put in play by the second and seventh batters (a sacrifice bunt by Nunez and a single by Kubel) the Twins brought eleven batters to the plate against three different relievers (Santos, Delabar and Happ) plating seven runs on eight walks and three wild pitches before the nightmare for the Jays was over.

Perkins closed out the ninth with a groundout, pop out and strikeout to end one of the most ridiculous endings to a game you will ever see and in effect snapped Toronto’s major league active streak of fifteen straight series wins against a single opponent (in this case our hapless Twins) which dates back to 2007.

It was a crazy day at Target Field but in the end the Twins walk away with not only two important wins but also a series victory against a team they hadn’t done that feat against in almost seven years to find themselves a half game back from the lead in the AL Central heading into a nasty road trip against the Royals and Rays before returning home to play the Tigers.



- DM