Baseball

Kenta Maeda Struck Out Eight; Twins Earn 2nd Straight Walk-Off Win, Beat Mariners

Nick Wosika-USA TODAY Sports
Jul 24, 2023; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; Minnesota Twins pitcher Kenta Maeda (18) delivers a pitch against the Seattle Mariners during the first inning at Target Field.

Reuters

12:06 JST, July 25, 2023

Carlos Correa singled in Donovan Solano from third in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Minnesota Twins a 4-3 victory over the Seattle Mariners on Monday in the opener of a three-game series in Minneapolis.

It was the second consecutive walk-off win for the Twins. Minnesota rallied from a 3-0, ninth-inning deficit to defeat the Chicago White Sox 5-4 in 12 innings on Sunday.

Correa looped an 0-2 fastball from Mariners reliever Paul Sewald (3-1) into right to drive in Solano, who began the inning as the automatic runner and moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Christian Vazquez.

Max Kepler went 3-for-4, including a game-tying RBI double in the bottom of the ninth, while Trevor Larnach had an RBI triple for Minnesota. Jorge Lopez (4-2) picked up the win with a hitless 10th inning.

Kolten Wong hit a two-run, pinch-hit home run in the top of the ninth to give the Mariners a 3-2 lead. Tom Murphy homered and doubled, and J.P. Crawford also had two hits for Seattle, which lost its second straight one-run game.

Seattle took a 1-0 lead in the fifth inning when Murphy led off with his seventh home run of the season.

Minnesota answered with two runs in the bottom of the fifth to take a 2-1 lead. Kepler led off with a single — the Twins’ first hit of the game off Seattle starter Luis Castillo — and scored two outs later on Larnach’s triple. Vazquez then sliced a single down the right field line to drive in Larnach.

The Mariners took back the lead in the ninth thanks to Wong’s two-run blast, which came off Twins reliever Griffin Jax.

But Minnesota rallied to force extra innings in the bottom half of the frame against reliever Andres Munoz, getting back-to-back doubles by Alex Kirilloff and Kepler to draw even at 3-3.

Twins starter Kenta Maeda allowed one run on six hits over 6 1/3 innings. He walked two and struck out eight. Castillo gave up two runs on four hits in seven innings, striking out nine and walking two.