MINNEAPOLIS — When they needed it most on Wednesday night, the Minnesota Twins’ bite matched Louie Varland’s bark.
Down three runs with their starting pitcher knocked out of the game in the second inning and the teams they’re chasing all winning, the Twins were in an uncomfortable position, their season continuing to crash down on them.
And then Varland barked in the dugout.
He let out his trademark junkyard dog bark after he stranded two runners in the second inning by striking out three straight batters. Varland’s effort began a dominant string of eight scoreless innings by Minnesota’s bullpen, which allowed the Twins to rally for a much-needed 8-3 victory over the Miami Marlins in front of 18,162 at Target Field.
Varland and five relievers combined for 14 strikeouts, while Byron Buxton celebrated his 100th game of the season by going 2-for-4 with a home run, the team’s first round-tripper in eight days.
Louie Varland stepped up & shut it down!
3 Ks in a row to lock it up!
Got the #MNTwins out of a jam like a BOSS!! pic.twitter.com/hSjuxWLmpH— Talkin’ Twins (@TalkinTwins) September 26, 2024
Not only did the victory allow the Twins to remain two games behind the Detroit Tigers and the Kansas City Royals, both of who won on Wednesday, in the wild-card race with four to play, it also demonstrated they still have a little ferocity left.
“Louie coming in and shutting them down the way he did and just being Louie, man,” Buxton said. “Him barking in the dugout, that gets you going.”
For six weeks now, the Twins have needed anything to get them going as they fell apart brick by brick. Hours before first pitch, another piece of the wall came tumbling down when Minnesota placed outfielder Matt Wallner on the 10-day injured list with a left oblique strain.
One of the team’s top left-handed hitters, Wallner said he felt his side grab during a pinch-hit at-bat in the sixth inning of Tuesday’s loss. Immediately, Wallner knew something was off, and an MRI taken on Wednesday revealed the strain. Austin Martin was recalled amid a series of moves, including activating reliever Justin Topa.
Jorge Alcala was also recalled, and the Twins designed left-hander Cole Irvin for assignment to make room for Topa, who pitched a scoreless ninth inning in his Twins debut.
“It’s not ideal,” Wallner said.
Little has been ideal about a stretch in which the Twins went from owning a 92.4-percent chance of making the playoffs on Aug. 17 to being on the outside looking in. But finally, a team which has only won 12 of its last 35 contests found itself headed in the right direction, albeit against the Marlins, who lost their 100th game.
First it was Varland coming out of the ‘pen after young starting pitcher Simeon Woods Richardson struggled again. Pitching with his fastball 2 1/2 miles per hour slower than his season average, Woods Richardson’s night began with a single, a walk and a three-run homer by Jake Burger. Miami’s next two batters also reached and were in scoring position before Woods Richardson escaped the jam and stranded the pair with a pair of strikeouts and a flyout.
But the Marlins went right back at it, starting the second inning with a pair of singles, which ended Woods Richardson’s outing, giving way to Varland’s heroics over 2 1/3 innings pitched.
And that’s when the Twins started to climb back.
Hitting with the bases loaded and two outs, Trevor Larnach ripped a two-run single to center to make it a 3-2 game. An inning later, Buxton launched a game-tying 450-foot home run as he reached triple digits in games played in a season for only the second time in his career and for the first time since 2017.
The homer was the team’s first since Sept. 17, when Willi Castro blasted a two-run shot late in a win at Cleveland.
“He’s still a phenomenal player capable of anything, capable of playing in the middle of the field, hitting in the middle of the order,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “He’s very explosive. He can do a lot to help you win.”
Not only did Buxton single in his next at-bat, he also made a key defensive play in the first inning on Jonah Bride’s double. Since returning to the lineup on Sept. 13, Buxton is 12-for-39 with seven runs, two doubles, two homers and six RBIs.
Buxton said his wife informed him early Wednesday that the game was his 100th game of the season, an achievement he worried might not be attained when right hip inflammation sidelined him for 28 games.
“I made it a goal of mine at the beginning of the season, just something small to hit triple digits this year,” Buxton said. “It’s exciting.”
The Twins then continued to provide excitement the rest of the way.
Tied at 3 in the bottom of the seventh after Varland, Alcala, Cole Sands and Griffin Jax combined for six scoreless innings, the Twins finally broke through.
Brooks Lee opened the inning with a double to deep right and pinch-runner Manuel Margot scored when reliever Declan Cronin’s lob on Christian Vázquez’s two-strike sac bunt soared over the head of Bride at first base, allowing the go-ahead run to score. Cronin’s error was the Marlins’ fourth of the game.
Carlos Correa — who ran the Twins out of a bases-loaded chance when he was doubled off second base to end the fifth inning — followed with an opposite-field RBI double to make it a 5-3 game. Larnach, who finished 2-for-3, was intentionally walked and Royce Lewis walked to load the bases ahead of Carlos Santana’s bases-clearing, two-out double.
“There’s some tough mindedness there,” Baldelli said. “The guys stayed at it. It’s not easy when you are down and you’re down early. It is a challenging thing. We almost pretend like it’s not, but it is. It is. But the ability to refocus our attention on what we needed to do was very good. When we did have those shots … we were able to score some runs.”
Just like the previous six weeks, little looked promising in the early going for the Twins.
Seattle won its series finale at Houston in the afternoon, temporarily moving the Mariners into a tie with the Twins, two games behind the Royals and Tigers. Then Detroit cruised to a 7-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays and Kansas City shutout the Washington Nationals, 3-0, to increase their leads to 2 1/2 games.
That, plus Woods Richardson’s short start, had things looking bleak for the Twins, who own the tiebreaker against each of the three teams nearest to them in the wild-card. Then Varland’s bark got them back on track — for one day at least.
“You know (Varland’s) ready because he wants to go back out there,” Buxton said. “Right before you go out there, he gives you a bark and it’s like, ‘He’s ready.’ It kind of just gets you going.”
(Photo of Varland: Jesse Johnson / Imagn Images)
