{"id":15439,"date":"2025-05-10T07:51:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T07:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/15439\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T07:51:21","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T07:51:21","slug":"twins-5-red-sox-4-darth-bader-delivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/15439\/","title":{"rendered":"Twins 5, Red Sox 4: Darth Bader Delivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

This felt like a big game for the 14-20 Minnesota Twins<\/a>. A victory would lock in a strong two-week stretch, while a defeat would let the Cleveland series malaise linger. Fortunately, our visiting bunch was able to channel the Force to come away with this Star Wars Day victory!<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s game thread intro, I extolled the virtues of a healthy Byron Buxton and noted he had never hit a ball out of Fenway Park. Well, Byron took that personally<\/a>\u2014hammering Red Sox<\/a> star starter Garrett Crochet\u2019s first pitch over the Green Monster. 1-0 Twins!<\/p>\n

\"Minnesota<\/p>\n

The Force was strong with this one!<\/p>\n

Photo By Winslow Townson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Sadly, the lead wouldn\u2019t last past the game\u2019s second frame.<\/p>\n

Boston\u2019s half of the 2nd began with Wilyer Abreu lofting a lazy fly ball to LF that Trevor Larnach and Jonah Bride\u2019s \u201cI got it\u2014you take it\u201d Laurel & Hardy routine<\/a> allowed to drop on the grass. RBI knocks from Carlos Narvaez & Ceddanne Rafaela off Twins SP Chris Paddack turned comedy into tragedy: 2-1 Sox.<\/p>\n

\"Minnesota<\/p>\n

Cue the Cuckoo Music<\/p>\n

Photo By Winslow Townson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

When Paddack passed Alex Bregman to lead off the 3rd, the walk would\u2014per usual\u2014haunt, with Bregman touching the dish on a Romy Gonzalez sac fly: 3-1 Sox.<\/p>\n

\"Minnesota<\/p>\n

Shaky Sheriff<\/p>\n

Photo By Winslow Townson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The next MIN rally occurred in the 5th when a bout of Crochet wildness put Larnach & Christian Vazquez on base. But a Buxton line out, Ryan Jeffers pop out, and Ty France ground out didn\u2019t move them an inch, much less 90 or 180 feet.<\/p>\n

\"Minnesota<\/p>\n

Crochet finding ways to keep the Twins at a single vertical line on the scoreboard<\/p>\n

Photo By Winslow Townson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Now battling the Boston bullpen, the Twins found themselves with runners on second and third with two outs in the 7th\u2014when Jeffers provided a name we haven\u2019t heard in a long, long time<\/a>: a clutch hit! All tied up at 3-3.<\/p>\n

\"Minnesota<\/p>\n

\u201cMy name’s Jeff\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo By Winslow Townson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

After a dominant frame from reliever Louis Varland, MN was not content with a bound baby. In the 8th, Harrison \u201cDarth<\/a>\u201d Bader bombed a two-out double\u2014scoring Correa\u2014to give the Twins a 4-3 lead. Moments later, Larnach lined another two-out hit (is this legal?!) to score Bader and provide a two-run cushion. Yeeee-hooo!<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Minnesota<\/p>\n

Face of frustration<\/p>\n

Photo By Winslow Townson\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

The Red Sox countered with some two-out dramatics of their own in the 8th when Abreu Jax\u2019d one out to RF off our Griffin to cut the margin to 5-4.<\/p>\n

But in the bottom of the 9th, Jhoan Duran said \u201clet\u2019s blow this thing and go home!<\/a>\u201d\u2014whiffing his surname counterpart atop the Sox order to close this one out.<\/p>\n

\"MLB:<\/p>\n

A fully-operational Duran<\/p>\n

Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images<\/p>\n

Your Final: Minnesota Twins 5, Boston Red Sox 4.<\/p>\n

Two weeks ago on this fine website, I mentioned wanting the Twins to put together an 8-5 run by the end of Star Wars Day<\/a>. It took until the final innings of that stretch, but they managed to make it happen!<\/p>\n

The squad will now return to 1 Twins Way this week to welcome in the Baltimore Orioles<\/a> and San Francisco Giants<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Studs<\/p>\n

Me, for setting up Buxton\u2019s immediate blast
\nBuxton, for providing said blast
\nJeffers, Bader, & Larnach for clutch hits<\/p>\n

Duds<\/p>\n

Comment of the Game<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This felt like a big game for the 14-20 Minnesota Twins. A victory would lock in a strong…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[6322,5,7889,4988,181,822,60,6011,3190,4,285,286,3251,3250,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-15439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-bader","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-darth","11":"tag-delivers","12":"tag-front-page","13":"tag-minnesota","14":"tag-minnesota-twins","15":"tag-minnesota-twins-game-recaps","16":"tag-minnesotatwins","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-red","19":"tag-sox","20":"tag-town","21":"tag-twinkie","22":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114482451940136173","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}