Willi Castro hit two homers and Trevor Larnach also went deep to lead the Minnesota Twins to a 10-3 victory over the Athletics on Tuesday night in West Sacramento, Calif.
Royce Lewis ended a 0-for-32 drought with a two-run double and Byron Buxton had a two-run single as the Twins beat the Athletics for the second time in two nights to begin a four-game series. Larnach had three of Minnesota’s 12 hits.
The Athletics dropped their eighth straight game and have lost 19 of their past 20 contests.
Minnesota’s Pablo Lopez (5-3) gave up two runs and four hits over five innings. He struck out four and walked three before leaving with right shoulder tightness, exiting after his third warmup pitch ahead of the sixth inning.
Manager Rocco Baldelli said, “It looks like it’s a lat strain, but it’s preliminary at this point. It’s safe to say it’s a likely IL (situation), but we have a lot more to learn over the next couple of days. And that’s where we’re going to leave it right now. He’s going to get checked out.”
Lopez said he first felt soreness in the bottom of the fifth inning.
“I tried to stay loose — we had a long inning,” he said. “Then I went out there and made my three warmup pitches low-to-mid intensity, and I felt the same thing. If it felt that way, then if I try to make a max-effort throw to get the inning started, you wonder what could happen.”
Three relievers finished up for the Twins, who scored exactly 10 runs for the second night in a row.
Minnesota trailed 2-0 before Castro hit a solo homer to left off Jacob Lopez (0-4) with one out in the fourth.
The Twins pushed four runs across in the sixth, with Larnach opening the inning by crushing a 3-1 fastball and sending it 432 feet to right to tie the score.
One out later, Castro hit a line shot over the wall in left to give Minnesota a 3-2 lead. It was his second two-homer outing in five games.
The bases were loaded later in the inning when Buxton delivered a two-run single off Osvaldo Bido to give the Twins a 5-2 lead.
In the bottom of the inning, Shea Langeliers led off with a double, and two groundouts pushed him across.
The Twins responded in the seventh as Larnach singled and Carlos Correa walked to start the inning. One out later, Ty France singled off Tyler Ferguson, and Brooks Lee was hit by a pitch to force in Larnach.
Lewis then ripped a two-run double off the fence in left-center to make it 8-3. The hit was Lewis’ first since May 19.
A wild pitch made it 9-3. One inning later, Correa’s infield out plated another.
The Athletics scored in the first inning when Lawrence Butler led off with a double and Brent Rooker followed with an RBI single.
The A’s tacked on in the third when Tyler Soderstrom stroked his first major league triple and scored on Langeliers’ sacrifice fly.
Jacob Lopez struck out a career-best nine in 4 1/3 innings of relief. He gave up five runs, five hits and one walk.
Grant Holman served as the opener for the Athletics and gave up one hit and one walk in 1 1/3 scoreless innings.
–Field Level Media
