Trevor Larnach and Joey Gallo both homered to highlight a seven-run third inning and the Minnesota Twins pounded out a season-high 18 hits in a 16-3 win over the Chicago Cubs in the rubber game of three-game series on Sunday afternoon in Minneapolis.
Michael A. Taylor homered, Kyle Farmer went 3-for-5 with a double and two RBIs and Nick Gordon had two doubles and two RBIs and two runs scored for Minnesota which won its sixth home series in seven tries this season.
Carlos Correa went 2-for-5 with a double and two RBIs, Byron Buxton ended an 0-for-26 streak with two hits and two runs scored and Alex Kirilloff, Christian Vazquez and Larnach, who finished with four RBIs, each had two hits for the Twins who outscored the Cubs, 27-4, while hitting eight home runs in the final two games of the series.
Louie Varland (1-0) earned his second career major league win, allowing three runs on four hits over 6 1/3 innings. He walked one and struck out seven.
Christopher Morel and Seiya Suzuki homered for Chicago which lost for the fifth time in the last seven games. Marcus Stroman (2-4), who had gone at least five innings in each of his eight previous starts, took the loss by allowing six runs on a season-high seven hits over 2 2/3 innings. He walked two and struck out three.
Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the first when Correa drilled a double down the left field line to drive in Kirilloff, who had singled.
The Twins then broke the game open with seven runs on seven hits in the third to extend their lead 8-0. Larnach made it 4-0 with a three-run homer, a 410-foot drive to center. Nick Gordon then had an RBI double off the wall in center, driving in Farmer, who had a hustle double. After Christian Vazquez drove in Gordon with a single to make it 6-0, Gallo followed with his ninth home run of the season, a towering 402-foot blast into the plaza, to make it 8-0.
Morel cut it to 8-1 with a leadoff homer in the fourth, a 461-foot drive into the third deck in left. The Cubs closed to 8-3 in the seventh on Suzuki’s second homer of the season and an RBI single by Nick Madrigal.
Farmer had an RBI single in the seventh to make it 9-3 and the Twins then had their second seven-run inning of the game in the eighth highlighted by Taylor’s two-run home run off position player Miles Mastrobuoni who allowed the final four runs on four hits in one-third of an inning.
–Field Level Media
