The New York Yankees completed a season sweep of the Minnesota Twins with an 8-5 victory Thursday night for their eighth straight win. That's 6-0 for the Yanks over the Twins this season and unless they somehow meet in the postseason, at least the Twins can say they're done with the Bronx Bombers for the year.
Twins ace Pablo López struggled with his control and the Yankees took advantage, putting seven runs up through the first four innings off López.
"It's pretty obvious, six walks, hit by pitch, seven free passes right there against a line up as deep as this one," López said after the game. You're just giving them fuel. They put the ball in play and that's exactly what they did. They found the bases loaded after I loaded them, ball got through, double and then things kept happening. I think it was just a lack of feel for everything. I tried to make adjustments with my targeting. It just wasn't there."
It was Gleyber Torres who bounced a two-run double inside first base for the Yankees (45-19), who broke a tie with Philadelphia for the best record in the majors. They moved to 25-6 in the last 31 games and extended their longest winning streak since a nine-game run in June 2022.
“One of the really special things going on is the many contributions we’re getting and the variety of ways we’re getting them,” Boone said.
The AL East leaders finished 6-0 versus Minnesota, a perennial Yankees punching bag. After outscoring the Twins 36-12 this year, New York is 123-44 against them since 2002 — including the playoffs.
"We didn't play well against them this regular season, six games and you lose all six. It's not easy to swallow," said Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. "You're not going to take a lot of positives out of it and feel good about almost anything. So we know we're just gonna keep working hard. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of games in front of us and nothing really slows down right now."
At least the Twins battled a little more in this game after pretty easy wins for New York in the first five games this year. Correa homered and knocked in two runs for Minnesota. Vázquez, the No. 9 batter, also went deep.
Minnesota scored three times in the fifth, including an RBI double by Max Kepler on a flyball that landed just fair in the left-field corner. Judge, making a rare start in left instead of center, jogged toward the ball and pulled up well before it dropped, apparently thinking it would float foul.
“The offense kept battling. I just like kept digging them in a deeper hole inning after inning. That’s exactly what I should not be doing, and it’s on me," said López, who has lost four of his past five starts.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Twins: Oft-injured 3B Royce Lewis and CF Byron Buxton were rested. Lewis returned Tuesday after missing 58 games with a strained right quadriceps. The plan is for him to maybe play all three games in Pittsburgh this weekend, manager Rocco Baldelli said.
UP NEXT
Twins: RHP Joe Ryan (4-4, 3.38 ERA) starts Friday night at Pittsburgh against RHP Mitch Keller (7-3, 3.42) in the opener of a three-game series. Ryan gave up four homers over five innings last Saturday in a 5-2 loss at Houston.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.