Twins' winning streak reaches eight with 10-inning victory and sweep of Giants

Phil Miller, The Minnesota Star Tribune on May 11, 2025

Published in Baseball

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MINNEAPOLIS — Rocco Baldelli wore a Timberwolves jacket during his pregame media session on Sunday. Then his team showed the same amount of determination as its NBA neighbor in beating a San Francisco foe.

Only difference: The Wolves can’t sweep the Warriors.

DeShawn Keirsey Jr. lined a 10th-inning single down the left-field line to score Brooks Lee with the winning run, and the Twins finished off the Giants, taking a 7-6 walk-off victory in the finale. It was Keirsey’s first RBI of the season.

The Twins, winners of eight games in a row and now sporting a winning record (21-20) for the first time all season, completed only their second sweep ever of a Target Field homestand at least six games long, matching their April 2022 blitz of the White Sox and Tigers.

Lee hit a two-run homer and Harrison Bader collected two hits and an RBI groundout. And in the 10th inning, after the Giants went ahead on a 50-foot tapper up the third-base line, Lee led off with a single and Ryan Jeffers hit a sharp ground-ball that Matt Chapman initially booted, preventing him from throwing automatic runner Ty France out at the plate.

Willi Castro was intentionally walked to put runners on first and second and Royce Lewis advanced the runners with a grounder to second, setting up Keirsey’s heroics. On the second pitch, a middle-of-the-plate sinker from Ryan Walker, the Giants’ sixth pitcher of the day, Keirsey drilled his winning hit the opposite way, just inside the left-field line.

The game featured one of the most improbable — statistically speaking, anyway — at-bats of the season. With the Twins trailing 4-3 in the sixth inning, Royce Lewis batted with the bases loaded.

In other words, the worst bases-loaded team in the majors (one hit in 20 chances since April 1) had, yep, put runners on every base, and the batter was a guy whose last hit came, oh, a little more than eight months ago.

So let’s allow Lewis to quote Charlie Brown: Tell your statistics to shut up.

Lewis swung and missed at a changeup, but after taking a ball, he stroked a 101-mph line drive to center field. That not only tied the game and set up Harrison Bader’s go-ahead RBI on double-play ball that the Giants couldn’t turn — it also ended Lewis’ 0 for 36 slump, the third-longest ever by a Twins position player.

But the inning ended on Byron Buxton’s sixth strikeout in two days, costing the Twins a chance to build on that one-run lead.

Too bad, because that advantage didn’t last long. Griffin Jax surrendered singles to three of the first four batters he faced in the eighth inning, with Ramos’ second hit of the day (and sixth in eight official at-bats in the series) driving in Willy Adames to tie the game once more.

Jax made his problems worse by walking pinch hitter Wilmer Flores to load the bases again, then fell behind Patrick Bailey 3-0. But the right-hander suddenly found the strike zone, worked the count full and retired Bailey on a routine grounder to short.

The game remained tied, though, until the 10th inning, when David Villar’s slow roller brought home the go-ahead run off Jhoan Duran. But San Francisco wasn’t able to protect that lead in the bottom of the inning.

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