Alex Kirilloff singled to drive in Max Kepler from second in the bottom of the 11th inning to give the Minnesota Twins a 4-3 walk-off win over the San Diego Padres on Wednesday night in Saint Paul, Minn.
Kepler, who also homered, doubled and scored three runs, began the inning at second as the designated runner. Reliever Domingo Tapia (0-1), making his first appearance since earning a save on May 1 against Cincinnati, intentionally walked Carlos Correa, who earlier had an RBI double, to start the inning. Kirilloff then grounded a 2-0 fastball down the right field line to drive in Kepler for the game-winning RBI.
Griffin Jax (2-4) pitched a scoreless inning of relief to pick up the win for Minnesota, which snapped a three-game losing streak.
Juan Soto homered for San Diego, which suffered its third loss in four games. Jake Cronenworth reached base four times with three walks and a hit by a pitch and he also stole a base.
Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the first inning on Kepler’s sixth home run of the season, a 415-foot drive into the second deck in right.
The Twins extended the lead to 2-0 in the third when Kepler lined a double over the glove of Soto in left and then scored on Correa’s towering double off the fence in left-center.
Soto cut it to 2-1 in the seventh when he led off with his sixth home run of the season, a 417-foot drive to dead center.
The Padres tied it, 2-2, in the eighth when Trent Grisham led off with a single off reliever Jorge Lopez, advanced to third on a single by Fernando Tatis Jr. and scored on a sacrifice fly by Manny Machado.
San Diego then took its first lead of the game in the 10th when designated runner Rougned Odor tagged and went to third on a flyout by Grisham and then scored on a suicide squeeze up the third base line by Austin Nola.
The Twins tied it in the bottom half against closer Josh Hader when pinch-hitter Donovan Solano singled down the right field line to drive in designated runner Willi Castro. Solano then advanced to second on a wild pitch but Hader, despite blowing his second straight save opportunity, rebounded to strike out Christian Vazquez and Nick Gordon. After Byron Buxton was intentionally walked, Hader struck out Kepler.
The Padres loaded the bases with two outs in the 11th on back-to-back walks to Soto and Xander Bogaerts after designated runner Tatis took third on a groundout by Machado. But Jax got out of the jam by striking out Matt Carpenter on three pitches.
–Field Level Media
